


Wander into Darkness

by whimsicality



Series: Lost Souls [1]
Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Laurell K. Hamilton, Roswell (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Crossover, Family, Friendship, Gen, Kid Fic, Magic, Multi, Mystery, Science Fiction, Supernatural - Freeform, Suspense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-08
Updated: 2014-04-30
Packaged: 2017-12-18 04:19:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 19
Words: 33,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/875543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whimsicality/pseuds/whimsicality
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when three teens from Roswell, two human and one not so much, are dropped into the Anita verse as adorable, powerful, six year olds. Inspired by the Mommy Anita challenge on Twisting the Hellmouth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is my version of the mommy Anita challenge from Twisting the Hellmouth as explained above, it will focus on Liz, Tess, and Alex and them having to grow up in this new universe where aliens are much less believable than vampires and werewolves. For the Roswell timeline this is set just after The End of the World and goes completely AU from there. For Anita this is set soon after Blue Moon and therefore almost a year before Obsidian Butterfly with several AU elements mostly in regard to Anita's relationship with the Pard.

Tess turned away from the blankly staring boy in front her, trying vainly to blink back the angry tears that burned in her eyes. This was wrong, horribly wrong, and she didn’t think she could go through with it. Nasedo would have been furious if he knew she had allowed herself to care for the humans, to be weak enough to feel sick to her stomach at the thought of killing, but it was too late to change that now.

He had been the one to push her towards this plan after she had mentioned how smart the boy was, something she now cursed herself for ever bringing up. "Maybe something good can come of these despicable connections they have formed with the humans," he'd said, mouth twisted in a disturbing parody of a smile. "You shall use him to translate the book. If nothing else, these humans can be satisfactory as tools."

Choking back a strangled croak that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob, she dug her nails into her palms until drops of blood started trickling down her fingers. Turning her hands over, she watched the red drops dry into rust brown streaks, a newfound determination bubbling inside of her. Nasedo’s blood wasn’t red but hers was and so was the boy’s. She liked her human side a damn sight better than her Antarian side, and it was time she started making decisions for herself instead of following someone else’s plan. Especially a someone who, as she had begun to realize, had never cared for her at all.

Turning sharply on her heel she reached out and tugged with her mind, the dark haired young man following silently behind her as she left the house and slipped behind the wheel of Nasedo’s car—it was time for a change.

The drive to the cave was disturbingly quiet, only his breathing indicating that the vacant body next to her was in fact alive. It gave her time to think however, and for this she was grateful; making the decision to be her own person was relatively easy when compared to the actuality of following through with it. Nasedo may have been dead but Kivar wasn’t going to accept this without a fight, and she needed to ensure not only her own safety, but the safety of the rest of the group that against her will she had become strangely attached to, even though half the time they seemed to wish she'd never come to town.

As they headed up the side of the cliff she tried to steel herself for what she was about to do, hoping that despite a million reasons to the contrary, the boy behind her wouldn’t hate her. Waving her hand over the stone wall that concealed her birth place, she pressed her palm against the silver symbol that appeared and waited rather impatiently for the telltale groan of the rock wall sliding open.

Now that she had worked up the nerve to do this, she found herself strangely eager to get it over with. She was about to start a whole new, terrifying, chapter of her life, and despite the fact that she knew it had a high chance of going horribly, fatally, wrong, she was still unable to stop hoping that it would turn out to be the first good chapter in a lifetime of shitty plot twists.

Finally they were safely ensconced inside the stone chamber, the power of the Granolith humming behind her, and gritting her teeth, she carefully pulled herself out of Alex’s mind, watching nervously as the life flooded back into his soulful blue eyes just before they narrowed suspiciously at her.

~

“What’s going on, Tess?” Alex asked flatly, his usual good nature suppressed by the unusual circumstances he found himself in. He remembered being pleasantly surprised when Tess came to visit him at his house, asking for his help with a project in her computer class, and then not much else before suddenly coming to himself here, in what he could only assume was the cave where the four aliens were hatched.

Unlike Maria, he had chosen not to judge the strange girl who had rather forcibly attached herself to their group. Even after the revelations that had left his best friend heartbroken, he had done his best to be friendly to the small blonde. After all, due to those same revelations she didn’t have any friends left.

Isabel avoided her like the plague, disliking her for the reminder that she wasn’t just a normal girl; Michael appreciated her knowledge but didn’t trust her and made it clear; and Max, in his avid pursuit of Liz, did his best to ignore her. Liz was the only one (other than maybe Kyle) who, like him, seemed to try and be at least civil if not friendly, but Maria was downright cruel to her, and despite the cold front Tess presented to the world, he couldn’t help but think that like Isabel, it was just a façade hiding the insecure girl inside. 

However being friendly to her didn’t mean that he trusted her, and knowing what he did about her abilities, he found his good feelings dwindling. “What did you do to me?”

“I mind warped you. I was going to convince you and everyone that you were going on that exchange student trip and use you to translate this,” she said quietly but firmly as she pulled a strange metal book out from her bag. Holding up her hand to stop him from speaking, she continued as if afraid that if she was interrupted she would never finish. “The book would tell me how to use the Granolith to take us back to Antar. It was part of a plan that Nasedo devised with Kivar, the one who killed us. They wanted me to get pregnant with Max’s baby and then return with the other three to Antar. Max and the others would be killed and my child would become Kivar’s heir, his royal blood ensuring the loyalty of the people.”

For the first time in his young life, Alex felt he understood the phrase ‘jaw hitting the floor’ as that was what his was currently attempting. “Why…why are you telling me this?”

Tess's lips trembled slightly. “Because I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to hurt anyone, and I don’t want to be used as a brood mare, and I don’t want to use you!”

At the beginning of her brief, yet impassioned, speech, she had seemed more afraid than anything else, but by the end her voice was iron hard with intensity and her blue eyes were blazing with fierce determination. For a moment, Alex got a glimpse of what she must have been like in her prior life: a Queen trying to guide her people and her King safely through a war.

“Well," he stated, feeling a surge of determination himself after her show of bravery. "As I like not being hurt or used myself, I think I’m glad you told me." Tess looked surprised and he gave her a wry grin. “I hope you didn’t expect me to hate you; Maria could give you chapter and verse on how bad I am at hating people even when I supposedly should.”

A hint of humor flashed across the blonde's face and she chuckled briefly, some tension releasing from her shoulders. “Well yes, but I was hoping that you wouldn’t. I need your help.”

He cocked his head to the side and raised a curious eyebrow. “What do you need my help for? I am just a human after all.”

Tess returned his ironic grin, apparently aware of how often she'd used similar phrasing in her attempts to get the other three aliens to focus on their duties. “You are not just anything, Alex; you are incredibly intelligent and you actually care about people. Maria should be more appreciative of your compassion.” Her grin widened as he stared at her in shock. “Even Nasedo acknowledged your intelligence and it’s that intelligence that I, that we all, need in order to stop Kivar’s plotting without any of us ending up dead.”

Alex nodded slowly, his mind already turning the problem over as it searched for possible solutions. “I will help, but I think there’s someone else we need to bring into this. I’m not the only smart human after all and I think she’ll be grateful for something to do. Besides, three minds are better than two and she’s the only one who won’t freak out when she hears what you have to say.”

“Liz,” the hybrid said softly, a statement not a question. “Did you know that she’s been trying to help me get Max’s attention?” She shook her head, “I don’t think I could do that if I was in her place.”

“That’s my Lizzy,” Alex replied with a proud smile. “Always doing what she thinks is right even if it means hurting herself.” Then his smile changed and became a little less nice, and a lot more protective, a smile that Tommy Hoeig would have recognized and cringed in remembered pain from a certain schoolyard incident. “She deserves a chance to help with this; she’s done more for you guys than anyone and she’s had the worst luck. Maybe helping you with Khivar will give her a chance to fight back.”

Tess nodded sharply. “Well then call her; the sooner we can figure something out the better. Kivar isn’t here, but Copper Summit can’t have been his only forces on Earth. Sooner or later he’s bound to figure out I’m not following the plan anymore and decide to take matters into his own hands.”

Reaching into his pocket, Alex pulled out his cell phone and pressed speed dial two, surprised to see that he actually had reception in the depths of an alien made cave. It rang twice before Liz’s soft voice came on the line, a lot shakier than he was used to hearing.

“Alex? Are you ok?"

“Yeah, Lizzy, I’m fine. I need your help. Can you meet me at the cave?”

There was a pause before she replied, voice suddenly suspicious, “How do you know where the cave is, Alex? You weren’t there this summer—is someone there with you?”

“Tess is here with me. We both need your help and no, this isn’t a mindwarp talking.”

There was silence and then her voice, much calmer and colder than before, came across the line. “I’ll be right there, don’t go anywhere.” Then there was a click and silence.

He could tell she was coming more out of fear for him than anything else—he wasn't the only protective one in their trio of friendship, they all were in their own ways—and could only hope she came alone. He didn’t trust the rationality of the rest of their group when it came to Tess, or any of the alien crap.

Pushing the cell phone back into the pocket of his jeans, he gave the blonde a weak smile. “She’s coming, but she’s expecting the worst, so let’s try and be gentle with the news.”

“I’m not sure that’s possible,” Tess said with a grim smile before turning to face the Granolith, her hands hovering just above the glowing surface. 

They were silent for the next twenty or so minutes, lost in thoughts of their predicament, before Alex approached her, unable to suppress his curiosity. “What is it exactly?” he asked quietly, sensing that she was trying to commune with it somehow.

“I’m not sure exactly,” she stated with a wry smirk. “My memories aren’t as complete as I’d like them to be. I know the Granolith is important, I just don’t know why.” Looking over her shoulder at him she continued. “I was hoping the book could tell me.”

He was more than little surprised at her acknowledging weakness, surprised and pleased. If she was willing to continue being human, then just maybe this alliance would actually work out. “Why would they send you here with a book you couldn’t read? That doesn’t make any sense if they want you to come back home.”

“Well I think we’ve learned that they weren’t exactly thinking clearly when they sent all of you here,” a new and slightly bitter voice stated as Liz stepped through the cave opening, her eyes dark as she watched the two of them.

“Liz!” Alex exclaimed with a smile that belied the worry in his eyes as he pulled her into a warm hug. Her body was tense against his and after a moment he pulled away. Still holding her arms, he frowned as he saw the pain and exhaustion radiating from her face. “What happened?”

Liz ran her hand through her hair and gave him a weak smile. “Oh you know, my future husband came back using an alien time machine and told me to make him fall out of love with me so that the world wouldn’t end; nothing out of the ordinary.”

Seeing the two gape jawed faces in front of her Liz started to laugh, the slightly hysterical giggles quickly dissolving into sobs as Alex once again pulled her into his arms, turning so he could stare worriedly at Tess over her head. What the hell was happening to their lives?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also, the first three chapters are set in the Roswell verse, and so are a bit slow compared to the rest of the story, but stick with it and we'll have Anita and the gang soon!


	2. Chapter 2

Her sobs finally ceased and Liz wiped the tears from her face before grimacing up at her best friend. “Sorry I got your shirt all wet.”

Alex just squeezed her tighter. “Don't worry about it; I've ruined more than one of your outfits over the years, comes with the territory.”

Liz giggled, this time with no hysteria. “Like the time you decided that you and I should try a mud bath when you got your first pimple?” When his face reddened, she laughed outright and then rested her head against his chest. “Oh I've missed you, Alex. I'm sorry I haven't been such a good friend lately.” Her voice sobered as she spoke and she tilted her face back up towards him, eyes large with guilt.

“It's okay; you've had a lot on your plate,” he replied gently, dropping a kiss on her forehead. “And I missed you too.”

They were silent for a few moments, just enjoying their renewed closeness, before Liz reluctantly pulled away and smiled at the blonde girl who was watching them nervously. “Hey, Tess, I guess we've both got some explaining to do.”

The other girl seemed surprised at her genuinely friendly tone, but quickly smiled back. “I'll go first since, amazingly enough, I think my story is going to be shorter than yours.”

Liz nodded and Tess gave a slightly sadder smile before speaking again, hoping that the brunette's friendliness wasn't about to disappear. “Nasedo worked out a deal with Kivar. I don’t know when exactly, just that it was after we left Antar and before the four of us hatched. Nasedo was going to raise me to be loyal to Kivar instead of Max and the others. I was supposed to seduce Max and get pregnant with his child, then return with the others to Antar. Michael and Max would be killed while Isabel would be given the option of becoming Kivar’s concubine. I would be wed to Kivar, thus ensuring that the rightful heir was raised by him, making him more acceptable to the people.”

Liz was looking paler by the minute and seemed to be far more disturbed by her revelations than Alex had been, so Tess hurried to finish, wanting to get the worst of it over with. “There was a problem though, because Nasedo couldn’t read the book and the crash had interfered with our memories, so neither could I. He wanted me to warp Alex and use him to translate the book. I realized after I warped him for the first time that I couldn’t go through with it, and so I brought him here to ask for his help, and then we called you.”

“You were supposed to save them, save us. He didn’t know, they never knew. Is that why we died?” Liz was muttering to herself after the blonde finished her recitation, pacing back and forth in front of them until her head snapped up and her eyes burned into Tess’s. “Can we trust you? Are you really ready to switch sides even though it could mean that you die, that we all die?”

Her voice was urgent, more urgent than the distant threat of Kivar warranted, and Tess felt her heart rate speed up as she answered “Yes,” in a much firmer tone of voice than she had expected of herself.

The other girl seemed to relax somewhat at her words, and she resumed pacing with less frenzy in her steps. “Three days ago Max was waiting for me in my room. Only it wasn’t our Max, it was Max from fourteen years in the future, and he had come to warn me. In his timeline he and I got back together that night and because of that you left town. Everything was fine for a while, we even eloped in Vegas, but eventually our enemies showed up and without you to complete the foursquare, they weren’t strong enough to defeat them.”

Liz eyes lifted to meet Tess’s as the blonde struggled for breath, the weight of her choices, in this life and apparently another, nearly crushing her. “Everyone but Max and I had died and we, along with a friend of ours named Serena, altered the Granolith to send it back in time. He told me that I had to make him fall out of love with me, to fall for you, so that you wouldn’t leave.”

Her lips quirked up in a bitter smile. “Obviously they had no idea of Nasedo’s deal. I tried helping you and telling Max I didn’t love him anymore, but nothing worked so last night I pretended to sleep with Kyle and set Max up to catch us.”

Sighing, she wearily rubbed at her forehead, clearly trying to hide her pain. “It worked and future Max disappeared, I successfully altered the timeline.” Her smile was grim as she stopped pacing and eyed the two of them consideringly. “Time will tell if I made it better, or worse.”

~

Weeks later and Alex was still shocked over everything Liz had revealed, shocked and angry. He had to resist the urge to punch Max every time he saw him, reminding himself that it wasn’t the other boy’s fault that his future self was an arrogant prick who dumped the responsibility for the world’s end on his best friend’s all too fragile shoulders.

The three of them had been plotting in secret ever since, bonds forming that surprised even him with their strength. Last year he never would have pegged Tess for becoming one of his best friends but that had quickly become the case, and he knew Liz felt the same way.

Things had gone speedily if depressingly since he woke up to find Tess staring at him. That day in the cave they had made a surprising breakthrough;

_The three of them were now sitting in a circle on the stone floor, Tess flipping distractedly through the metal pages of the book as they discussed their options. “It must have been translated at some point,” Liz said, the wrinkle between her eyebrows indicating deep thought. “I doubt I could have managed to alter the Granolith without the book.”_

_“It’s just so stupid to send us here without the ability to read our own language!” Tess burst out, surprising the others and herself with her intensity before blushing at the looks the other two gave her._

_“You tell em, Tess,” Liz said with a wry grin as Alex pulled the book out of Tess’s lap._

_He held it up to his face and gave it his best glare. “Now listen me to you alien thing-a-ma-bob, we need your help so you better shape up and become readable, you hear me?”_

_The girls giggled and chimed in with a “Hear hear!”_

_Then Alex swore as the book suddenly turned hot in his hands and dropped it, now glowing, onto the cave floor. Waving his scorched fingers in the air he grimaced. “I think we pissed it off.”_

_Tess grabbed his hands, healing them with a soft golden glow and Liz hesitantly picked up the book, relieved to find it now cool to the touch. Her continued silence caused the other two to simultaneously reach over and pull the top of the book down so they could see, both of them gasping as they saw the now English lettering covering the page._

Alex grinned, apparently alien technology was more like his TV than he would have expected, yell at it and maybe give it a good thump and it worked like a charm. His smile disappeared quickly. Unfortunately the book hadn’t held the best of news when it came to their chances against Kivar, and so they had formed the desperate plan they were currently enacting.

Between the book and Tess’s knowledge from Nasedo they had pieced together a somewhat accurate picture of Kivar’s forces, and it was terrifying. He had hundreds of thousands of soldiers, both shapeshifters and regular Antarian troops that would use husks, available to send after them. Thousands of those soldiers had abilities that could match those of the Royal Four, if not in individual strength than in numbers.

Not to mention technology that far outstripped what they had available to them here on Earth. To stop the only remaining threat to his power, Kivar was willing to use all of the resources available to him—even if it meant destroying an entire planet. Their own abilities were nowhere near powerful enough to defeat him, regardless of what future Max had implied.

However, Kivar’s only interest in Earth was in the royal four and the Granolith—remove those and he had too much on his plate to waste time and resources on the far away planet. There were allies and enemies far closer to Antar that he needed to focus on. Therefore they had decided that in order to ensure their families, and their home’s, safety, they needed to be removed from the equation.

They were going to fake their deaths, all of the royal four’s as well as Liz and Alex’s, and Maria and Kyle’s if they so chose. In reading the book Liz had found a way to alter the Granolith again only this time they weren’t going to use it; they were going to destroy it.

The shockwaves of that destruction would be noticed by Kivar’s forces on Earth, even as the humans would write it off as strange seismic activity in the desert. With the royal four dead and the Granolith gone, Kivar should recall his forces and leave Earth in peace, leaving all of them to start new quiet lives. If at some point the others chose to try and return to Antar, they were free to find other methods, although Tess had already made it clear to he and Liz that she liked her human life and had no intention of giving it up.

The only obstacle in this plan involved informing the others, something he was not looking forward to.

~

“Are you kidding?” “We can’t trust her!” “What do you mean we’re all going to die?!” “You saw me, from the future?”

Liz rested her head in her hands and tried to ignore the four people yelling at her, and the one just staring in shock, instead focusing on the two comforting bodies next to her on Michael’s couch.

She was very glad that they had decided to leave out a few details; like the fact that Tess had actually planned on going ahead with Nasedo’s plan instead of the version where she was just waiting for the right time to tell them. Not to mention the fact that all she told them about future Max was that he warned her about the world ending, and the importance of the foursquare, and that she and Max ‘hadn’t worked out’ which led to her pushing Max away. She couldn’t bear to tell him the full truth, not when he looked so hopeful and she was already moving on.

They weren’t handling the news well, not that she had expected them to, but the headache she hadn’t been able to get rid of for the past three weeks was not appreciating their hysteria.

Kyle was just staring in shock; partly at the news of just why she had used him the way she had, and partly at just how crazy his life had gotten. Maria was hysterical, Michael was glowering, Isabel was scared and being sarcastic to cover it, and Max couldn’t get past the least important part of it all; the fact that she hadn’t slept with Kyle. Which she had only told him so that he would shut up and listen to the rest of it.

It was Tess who finally had enough and clapped her hands with a bright flash of light that silenced the room. “We. Do. Not. Have. A. Choice,” she said quietly, enunciating each word carefully. “Kivar, with the help of our _protector_ , has been plotting to kill us for fifty years. We know he succeeds, thanks to Liz, and we know from the book—and common sense—that despite what our future selves thought, we have no chance of defeating a planet full of soldiers. If we want our families and friends to survive we need to disappear. That’s it; there are no other options unless you want their blood on your heads.”

The room was still, only Maria’s muffled sobs breaking the silence. “Maria and Kyle are probably safe if they want to stay, although Kyle will need to hear a few things later, but the rest of us have to go. I don’t think any of us want our parents to suffer for this,” Alex said gently, hoping to soften the blow somewhat.

“Why...why do you and Liz have to go?” Maria asked, her voice breaking over the words.

“When Max healed me, he changed me—at least that’s what the book said—and so Kivar’s forces would be able to detect me just like they can the Royal four,” Liz explained, shooting a look at Kyle that said they would talk later. “As for Alex, he refuses to let me and Tess alter the Granolith alone, and tampering with it will alter him just like Max’s healing altered me.”

Seeing the worry and fear still in her friend’s eyes, Liz stood up and pulled her into a hug. “It’s going to be hard, Maria, I won’t lie. I’m going to miss you and my parents so much, but I couldn’t bear it if you died because I wasn’t strong enough to do this.”

Alex joined them in the hug, wrapping his arms around both of his original girls, the rest of the room watching them silently as individually they each decided that they too would be strong enough.


	3. Chapter 3

Maria had decided to stay, as had Kyle; neither of them thought that their single parents would be able to handle losing them. Michael had refused to be with Maria since the end of last year, and Kyle had the least tie to the alien mess. Liz and Tess had taken him aside to explain the changes he might experience, but given the length of time it would take for them to manifest, and his lack of connection with Max, they both thought he should be safe from their enemies.

The rest of them had been given one week. One week to prepare themselves to never see the ones they loved again, to try and say goodbye without being obvious. It was the most heart breaking week any of them had ever lived through, at least in this life.

Isabel spent as much time with her mom as possible, while Max actually joined in the family evenings for the first time in a long time. Alex and Liz both had close relationships with their family so spending a little extra time with them went largely unnoticed, although both Alex’s father and Liz’s mother commented on how affectionate their children were lately, and how glad they were that the two best friends were spending time together again. Tess hung out with Kyle, it was somewhat awkward, but it was better than sitting alone in the empty house Nasedo had purchased. All too soon the week came to an end.

~

A car accident was the simplest and most likely way for them to die, so they planned a camping trip the next weekend for all of those slated to disappear—a bonding trip. Maria’s mom had a convention that weekend so she had a perfect excuse not to attend, and Kyle wasn’t close enough to any of them to be expected to go, not to mention the game was that weekend.

Isabel and Tess were going to manipulate the structure of some logs from Frasier woods to be their bodies; they had been practicing for several days now and were quite disgusted with the process. Max and Michael were working on Nasedo’s car, as well as their planned site for the accident, a deep gully that ran next to the woods where they were going to camp.

Pulling off a believable two car wreck was much harder than one, so they had decided to leave the jeep at the camp site and have all of them pile into Nasedo’s large suburban for the dive off the road. Tess and Liz had gone to Albuquerque one day after school and mindwarped a car salesman to see two Hispanic men as they purchased their getaway vehicle, and then Liz had driven the car to their hiding spot in the woods while Tess held a warp over the car of a completely different make, model, color, and license plate.

Other than that one trip, Liz and Alex had spent most of their time outside of work and school in the Granolith chamber with the book, perfecting their plan to destroy it without taking out the town as well.

Packing for the camping trip gave them the excuse to pack for a much longer trip, and since they planned to stage the accident the first day out, completely torching the car, it shouldn’t be suspicious that only a few bags were found at the campsite. The rest were stashed in the third vehicle, hidden in a small copse of trees a couple miles from the camp site, but not too far from the actual crash site. The crash site itself was also only a couple miles from the Granolith Chamber.

Liz and Alex were going to be at the cave the morning of the crash, with Tess there in case anything went wrong. At a set time they were going to program the Granolith and leave, while the other three waited for the explosion before pushing the suburban into the ravine and hiking to the new car, then driving it to the next destination.

Meanwhile the other threesome, with Tess warping if anyone saw them, were going to have a longer walk to meet them at the fourth site that was farther from the crash, but closer to the Granolith chamber, where they would all join up and leave.

Max hadn’t been happy about it, but he and the others had reluctantly agreed that if they had no contact three hours after the explosion, to leave and assume something went wrong. They would stay nearby for a few days and then move on, most likely to Canada. No cell phones could be used after the crash, and in fact were going to be left with the ‘bodies’ in the car to prevent temptation.

The plan was detailed and well thought out with contingencies in place in case anything went wrong, but as we all know, even the best laid plans sometimes go awry.

~

That Friday Liz stared around her room, trying to memorize every detail. It would be far too suspicious to take all of her personal mementos, so she had been limited to just a few pictures, and of course her journal. Guilt was eating through her heart at what she was about to do to her parents, and only the fact that she had refused to think at all had enabled her to get through that week without bursting into tears every time she saw them. Instead she had limited herself to a couple more hugs than normal, and thanked the stars that it had been inventory week when her father expected her to hole up with him in his office for two hours every day. It had been hard to balance her time with the Granolith, but it had been worth it for those few more precious moments.

A tap on the window startled her and she jumped, turning to see Alex’s somber blue eyes staring at her from the other side. Opening the window she pulled him into a hug almost before he got his feet on the floor, not bothering to speak, just holding him as they grieved for everything they were giving up. After a few minutes a throat was cleared behind them and their heads tilted towards the window where Tess was perched hesitantly on the sill. Reaching out as one they pulled her into the hug too, all three of them quietly reveling in the closeness that they hoped would get them through the days to come.

They left that day after school, all of them knowing how much harder it would be to say goodbye if they waited until the next morning. They were largely silent that night as they made camp, none of them in the mood to talk as they moved about their various duties.

Max, Michael and Isabel were still surprised by the closeness that the other three had developed, and occasionally shot glances at them over the fire where the two girls were curled into Alex’s sides, staring into the flames and occasionally whispering quiet comments to each other.

Max and Isabel were both dealing with jealousy at watching someone they had considered theirs be so close to someone else, while Michael was just bemused at how quickly the two humans had thawed Tess’s shell, something the rest of them hadn’t managed, or even really tried to accomplish over the past year.

This plan they had concocted, the general in him admired it. It’s swiftness and finality, as well as how many details they had taken in to account—given their age and life experience it was nothing short of amazing, and Michael was finding himself quite glad that they were on his side.

~

The next morning dawned hot and clear, the tension in the air wrapping itself around them with bone crushing strength. When they separated at the caves, Michael was the only one to speak, wishing the other three “Good luck.” The soldier in him felt guilty for letting three civilians handle the most dangerous job.

Liz smiled at him and surprised him with a quick hug, before turning back to the others and ignoring Max’s eyes as they burned into the back of her neck. They ascended the cliff side at a steady pace, each of them listening to the sounds of the car fading into the desert. They were confident in their ability to destroy the Granolith, what they were not as confident about was their ability to survive the destruction.

They hadn’t shared those doubts with the others, only mentioning the contingency plan as if it was an afterthought rather than a very real fear, because they knew they would have been stopped otherwise, and they couldn’t afford to fail.

Liz had been plagued with nightmares every night since future Max left, nightmares of a future that woke her screaming into her pillow. Tess and Alex were the only ones who knew of these nightmares, and they were all determined to prevent them from becoming reality—again.

~

Tess stood behind them as the two humans shifted the crystals around the Granolith’s base, removing some and merely moving others. After what seemed like hours although she knew it wasn’t even one, they signaled that they were ready and she stepped forward. For the final interface with the device they needed her as an Antarian. They could direct it, guide it, but they needed her for the connection.

Standing directly in front of the glowing pillar, she raised her hands until they were almost touching the surface. Alex and Liz each had one hand on her back, their fingers interlaced and the other hand hovering like hers over the surface of the Granolith. Glancing first to her left at Alex, and then to her right at Liz who smiled warmly, she took a deep breath and pushed her hands against it as her companions did the same.

There was a humming in her head, a humming she could feel in her bones and suddenly she was hearing Liz and Alex. All three of them were jumbled in her head and it was hard to tell whose thought was whose.

The humming grew louder until her whole skull was vibrating and she couldn’t hear Liz and Alex thinking anymore, she couldn’t hear anything but the buzz, and then something was tugging on her and she felt the fear through a suddenly forged bond. They had made a mistake, the Granolith wasn’t a device, it was an entity, and it had its own plans.

Now the buzzing had a feeling of amusement to it and then a fourth voice was in her head, both quieter and louder than anything she had ever heard before. It spoke, and while there weren’t words as such, she understood the meaning very clearly. “Don’t worry, little ones, they will all be safe. You have somewhere else to be.”

Silence, deafening silence and then a rushing light, not white but somehow every color she knew and every color she didn’t know all around her. The light went through her and touched every molecule inside of her and she could feel Liz and Alex as they too were invaded by the sparkling energy. Then there was nothing and she was at peace.


	4. Chapter 4

Anita was having a bad day, that wasn’t exactly unusual, but she was feeling particularly frazzled and her black scowl had the people in front of her quickly dodging out of her way as she headed for the doors. Craig, the night secretary, paled at the look on her face, and forewent his usual good morning in favor of hiding his face behind some files. Anita ignored him and stalked to her car, slamming the door with a less than satisfying thud.

Six zombie raisings in seven hours; she was covered in blood, exhausted, and extremely annoyed. The last group had brought along a priest to counsel the bereaved, a priest who made it quite clear he thought she was the spawn of Satan. Growling under her breath Anita threw the car into gear.

The sun was just barely starting to creep over the horizon and it was still grey and cool, Jean-Claude was probably just now seeking his coffin. If she wanted, she could reach out and check… shaking off those thoughts and reminding herself that she had closed the marks for a reason, she pulled onto the freeway that was the most direct route to her house.

Grabbing her travel mug, she took a sip of the day old, cold, coffee. She made a face as the cold, bitter liquid touched her tongue, but continued drinking, the caffeine a soothing balm to her frayed nerves. Twenty-five minutes later she was on the last stretch of road leading to her house, feeling a tiny bit better, when a glowing ball of energy appeared in front of her car. "Shit!" She slammed on the breaks and swerved, barely managing to stop before her car entered the crackling ball of light.

Choosing to remain in the dubious safety of her vehicle, she watched the phenomenon expand and contract before it dissolved with a flash of blinding white light that sent waves of energy rolling over and through her. Gritting her teeth to hold back a scream as the energy pulled against her own power, she collapsed over the steering wheel and moaned when it finally dispersed. She felt dizzy, not quite right, as she managed to sit up—what the hell had that thing been? Peering through the windshield, her mouth dropped open as she saw three small children curled in a pile in the middle of the road.

Opening her door, she staggered toward them, hand on the side of her car to keep her balance as she knelt down on the asphalt. There were two girls and one boy, all three looking to be about five or six years old. They were breathing—thank God—and were either sleeping or unconscious, arms wrapped around each other, and bodies limp.

Sitting back against the front of her SUV, she reached into her pocket and pulled out her cell phone, grateful that the energy storm—or whatever it was—hadn’t fried it. She could barely stand, so she was definitely going to need some help getting them into the car and back to her house. Whatever had just happened wasn’t normal, and she had a feeling that her life was, once again, about to get a lot more complicated.

It was Nathaniel who answered the house phone, his soft voice making her smile despite the situation. “Hey I’m about three miles from the house on the side of the road, can you come meet me? I have some…packages that need special handling.”

Once he had agreed and her phone was back in her pocket, she resumed studying the children. The little boy had dark hair and fair skin with a few visible freckles. Of the two little girls one was a tiny blonde with pale creamy skin, and the other was an equally tiny brunette with duskier skin, possibly indicating a mixed heritage. All three of them were wearing clothes that looked a little out of place on children, more like something teenagers would wear.

Why, or maybe more importantly, how were they here? The energy was something she could only assume was magical in nature—was it an accident or were they sent here intentionally? If it was the latter, were they sent to her? That thought got a weary chuckle from her; who in their right mind would send her children? Her life was full of violence, and death, and monsters; children had no place there.

None the less she couldn’t stop a small stirring of maternal warmth at the sight of the three children cuddling in front of her, a tiny and quickly repressed part of her wishing that her life did have room in it for something as innocent as a child. Someday.

Nathaniel saved her from her thoughts when he appeared loping up the road, not having bothered to borrow anyone’s car for the short distance. His long auburn hair was up in a ponytail streaming behind him as he ran; as he got closer she could see the concern in his warm lilac eyes, as well as the shock when he noticed the children.

Stopping next to her without any indication of tiredness he cocked his head to the side curiously, reminding her of a kitten. She definitely needed more coffee. With a tired sigh she accepted his help up.

“I don’t know where they came from; the way they appeared…well it was special. I’m going to call Marianne once we get them to the house.”

“They’re magical?” Nathaniel asked in surprise, pausing mid-bend, his arms still stretched out towards the children.

Anita frowned. “I don’t know, but they way they appeared was.” Reaching out with her other senses, she frowned again as she sensed something, strong but elusive. “They do have power." She shook her head and gave up on figuring it out, for the moment anyway. "I just don’t know what kind, they don’t feel completely human.”

She smiled wanly at him, “Either way they need our help and I need more coffee.”

He smiled back but raised a stern eyebrow. “And food.” When she pouted, he just continued to stare until her resistance wilted.

“Fine, and food, I’m sure they’ll be hungry as well when they wake up.”

Satisfied, he nodded, finishing his bend and scooping up all three, his deceptively petite frame looking a little strange with the large bundle. None of the children so much as twitched as he carried them to the car and settled them into the backseat. He and Anita separated them and buckled them each into different seat belts, then exchanged a bemused smile as even unconscious they found each others' hands and held on tight.

The drive back was silent, Anita watching the road and driving much slower than normal while Nathaniel watched the children. It still surprised her how quickly she had accepted Nathaniel as part of her life. The pard was hers, they didn’t officially live with her but spent so much time at her house they might as well.

They were hers to protect and she was beginning to accept their presence in her life as well as slowly getting more comfortable with just how physical of a presence that was. But Nathaniel was the only one she saw as family, somehow in the months since she saved his life he had wormed his way more firmly into her heart and life than she liked.

Unfortunately, as her relationships with both Jean-Claude and Richard proved, you couldn’t just turn feelings off when you wanted to.

So Nathaniel was the first, and so far only, leopard to officially move in and become part of her life. He was even developing a backbone, at least when it came to her and the other leopards, which currently involved trying to improve her eating habits.

Pulling into the driveway she saw Zane and Cherry waiting on the front step, the others were most likely at work. The look on their faces when Nathaniel ducked into the backseat and pulled out three small children was almost comical. Feeling her headache grow, she followed Nathaniel into the house and headed straight for the phone, after directing him to lay the children down on her bed. First call to make was Dolph, just in case there was a missing persons out, and then she could call Marianne.

The station told her to call his car phone; he answered that with an abrupt. “Anita.”

Biting her tongue to hold back her curiosity at how he always knew it was her, she skipped straight to the problem. “I found three children in the road outside my house, no ID’s and they haven’t woken up yet although there doesn’t appear to be any physical trauma.” Mentally she added in a call to Lillian to her to-do list, wouldn’t hurt to get them checked out.

She hesitated, debating whether to mention how they appeared, before deciding what the hell. “How they appeared Dolph, well someone pretty powerful did it and there was a lot of energy used. Don’t just check for missing persons but anything big with a preternatural flag on it.”

“Were any of them bleeding?” Dolph asked; his voice sharp with tension.

Anita frowned. “No, none of them were bleeding and they don’t have any recently closed wounds.” Even closed, the marks gave her enhanced senses, and she would have smelled the blood, as would the Shifters in her house—their reactions would have been clear and immediate.

He grunted and thought for a moment. “Ok, I’ll get some people on it. Are you keeping them for now?” His voice sounded like he couldn’t decide between hoping that she said yes so he wouldn’t have to deal with it, and telling her not to so the children wouldn’t be around all of her monsters.

She had had some of those same thoughts herself, but what she said was true, someone pretty powerful had to have done this, and that could mean that there were some not so nice people after these kids. Unfortunately she couldn’t think of anyone better qualified to protect them than her.

“Yeah, I’ll keep them. They might be in trouble and if they are, I don’t think social services could handle the kind of things they’re likely to attract.”

He seemed to accept this and gave her another abrupt response. “Okay, I’ll get back to you.” He hung up without saying goodbye; she was too used to this to even feel mildly offended.

Sending a soft glare Nathaniel’s way as he returned to the kitchen and threw some bacon in the pan, she dialed Lillian’s number and, after a brief chat, the doctor promised to be there within the hour.

She accepted a cup of coffee from Nathaniel gratefully even as she frowned when he added pancakes to the breakfast he was making, then made her third and hopefully last call. “Hey Marianne, any chance you could take a trip up here for a few days? No, it’s not me. I found some children, or maybe they found me. I could really use your help...That will work, thank you so much. Bye.”

Nathaniel slid a plate in front of her, his eyes asking if everything was okay.

“Lillian will be here soon and Marianne will be here Tuesday, so with any luck we’ll only have to play babysitter for three days.” Picking up her fork she gave him a faint smile. “Thank God tonight is my night off, Bert would be pissed if I missed any more work.”

Zane and Cherry were happily digging into Nathaniel’s cooking and she forced herself to eat a few bites, and then smiled as she heard a sound from the other room. “I think our guests have woken up,” she said, far more cheerily than she actually felt at the excuse to escape the table.

She felt the other three behind her in the hallway, their curiosity a palpable presence in the air. All three of the children were awake, the two girls were sitting on the end of her bed and the boy was standing in front of them, glaring at the adults in the hallway and looking decidedly protective. It would have been adorable if it didn’t make her heart break at the thought of what they might have gone through.

~

Alex blinked groggily, his head was fuzzy and he felt like he should have a headache, although he didn’t know why. There was sunlight coming in from the window and it made him squint, the Granolith chamber had been so dark. He paused in his thoughts, window? Sitting up he looked around and saw that he was in a bedroom, not his bedroom. Everything seemed awfully large too, as if made for people bigger than he was. Turning, he saw two children lying on the bed next to him. What were kids doing here?

Liz’s head was throbbing and she had an extreme feeling of disorientation, a flash of the Granolith hit her and she sat up abruptly, then clutched her head as the pain increased. Were Tess and Alex okay? What had happened? Had it exploded? Her thoughts were all muddled and she couldn’t piece together her memories into any coherent picture. Realizing that she was staring into space, she shook herself and looked around, she had this vague feeling that they weren’t anywhere near home. Scanning to the left she saw a normal bedroom, to the right she jumped as she saw Alex staring at her. Only it wasn’t Alex as she had just seen him, but the Alex she remembered from first grade, with a little snub nose, large pale eyes, and a faint smattering of freckles. What the hell was going on?

Tess still felt like her body was humming, she couldn’t feel the Granolith anymore, but she could feel Liz and Alex and herself, and their power was so strong, it was intoxicating. In fact she felt a little drunk; like that time she had taken a sip from the weird bottle she found in Nasedo’s nightstand. Opening her eyes she stared at the smooth white ceiling, but made no move to sit up, afraid that if she did she would pass out again. The Granolith, it had spoken to them, something important. The memory was like a word on the tip of her tongue, almost there but just out of reach. Tilting her head to the side she saw Liz and Alex engaging in a staring contest. After a moment she giggled—they were so little!


	5. Chapter 5

Alex broke the silence first, his voice sounding oddly high pitched to their ears. “So anyone else notice something weird?”

Tess giggled again, finally sitting up, and Liz just stared at him in shock, her scientific mind unable to process what was happening. “Are we having a group hallucination, or?” Staring at her suddenly tiny hands, the minute fingernails still painted the dusky red they had been before, she blinked, hard, and then pouted when they didn’t get any bigger. “Did the Granolith do this? Could the Granolith do this?”

The blonde frowned, her voice hesitant—sweeter and higher than before— as she answered. “I guess so; its power…it has a lot of it, so if it wanted to.” She shrugged. “I know it stopped us, it was sending us somewhere, I think.” Pausing, she smiled weakly at them. “Everything’s kind of fuzzy.”

“Why make us kids though?” Alex asked, more rhetorically than anything else. “I mean I kind of get sending us somewhere else, and if the others are okay, then that’s okay I guess, but I have no desire to go through puberty again.”

The last statement made Tess and Liz grin, Liz’s grin dying quickly as she thought of another worry and tried to ignore the clamor in the back of her head that just wanted her mommy.

“Where are we?” she asked, and then hurried to explain. “I mean I know we’re not where we were, and we’re in a house, but I feel a little like Dorothy; I don’t think we’re anywhere near home and I don’t mean just a different city.”

A sudden sound from the other side of the door made all three of them fall silent, Alex sliding off the bed to stand protectively in front of the girls as the door opened. Liz’s last thought before a woman came in the room was that Tess should be in front; if they were really stuck as kids, she was the only one who could protect them.

~

Anita smiled gently and walked slowly into the room, her hands held loosely at her sides in what she hoped was a non threatening position. She stopped several feet from the children and spoke softly. “Hi, my name is Anita Blake. This is my house and you’re safe here; what are your names?

The three glanced at each other and she could see they were weighing whether to trust her or not. The look in their eyes spoke of wisdom beyond their apparent years, and she added a few more questions to her list of things she wanted to know about them. It was the brunette little girl who slid off the bed and stepped forward to answer her, her young voice soft and sweet. “My name is Liz; this is Alex and Tess. How did we get here?”

Her little girl voice sounded so suspicious and Anita had to fight to keep a gentle smile on her face, anger rising in her at whoever could make such a young child so jaded. “I brought you in my car, I…found you in the road. Do you remember anything that happened to you?”

Liz thought hard, part of her wondering what to say to the woman, and part of her worried about how dull the memory was already becoming, so she decided to stick with the basics—they were supposed to be kids after all. “We were in a cave and there was a big flash of light and I was dizzy and then we woke up here.” Her voice sounded plaintive even to her own ears and she felt a sudden jolt of fear as she realized that it wasn’t just her body that felt like a child.

She scooted back towards the bed, grabbing Tess and Alex’s hands as she tried to fight the terror that was suddenly overwhelming her. Were they really stuck like this? Were they going to get more and more kidlike until they barely remembered who they were? Everything was fuzzy and it seemed to be getting worse, not better.

The woman seemed to sense her fear and took a few steps closer, kneeling down in front of them. “Hey, it’s going to be okay. We’ll figure it out and until we do you’re safe here, I’ll take care of you.”

The wave of maternal protectiveness that was flowing over her startled Anita, but the look in the girl’s big brown eyes had tugged on her heart strings, and she couldn’t not reassure her.

Nathaniel chose that moment to come into the room as well, and he knelt down beside her as Zane and Cherry hovered in the doorway, watching the scene with wide, curious eyes. “Hi Liz, Tess, Alex. I’m Nathaniel and I’m a friend of Anita’s, are you guys hungry?”

The boy nodded energetically, then stopped abruptly, looking surprised at his own enthusiasm which caused the blonde to giggle, a merry tinkling sound that brought a real smile to Anita’s face.

The brunette seemed to shake off her fear and stepped forward, hesitantly reaching forward to touch Nathaniel’s hair as the blonde slid off the bed and spoke for the first time. “Your hair is really pretty.”

“Thank you,” Nathaniel said with a genuine warm smile, making an effort to not move as Liz continued to stroke his hair.

Suddenly the girl blushed and pulled away. “I’m sorry, it looked so soft.”

He took her hand before she could step away and smiled gently. “It’s okay, I didn’t mind. Are you hungry too?” She nodded and bit her lip, lifting her eyes to meet his and giving him a cautious smile.

He stood up slowly, careful not to startle her and kept her hand in his, offering his other hand to the little blonde, Tess. “Want to help me make breakfast? I have pancakes and bacon.” He grinned, and got a sneaky look on his face, “Maybe if we ask nicely, Anita will let us use some of the strawberries and whip cream she hid in the back of the fridge.”

Then it was Anita’s turn to blush. Those items hadn’t been bought by her, nor had they been bought with pancakes in mind. Damn Jean-Claude. All three of the children were looking at her with hopeful expressions on their faces and she nodded, wishing that her face wasn’t beet red, and glad that they wouldn’t understand why. “That would be fine.”

“Yay!” Tess exclaimed, and clapped her hands, before taking the one Nathaniel offered. “I’ve never made pancakes before, is it hard?” she asked him as he led them towards the door and into the hall.

“Are you coming?” Anita asked Alex, reaching out her own hand and smiling in spite of herself as she felt his small fingers grip her own.

~

Alex sat at the table and watched the goings on in the kitchen with a big grin, occasionally giggling when he didn’t think anyone was watching. Liz was cracking eggs carefully and looked very serious, while Tess had managed to coat both herself, and Nathaniel in flour, and was laughing uncontrollably as he tried to clean her face with the dish towel. Zane and Cherry were sitting on stools on the other side of the counter, eyes wide with amazement and amusement, shooting occasional glances at Anita as if they weren’t quite sure that it was really happening.

Anita realized she hadn’t stopped smiling in almost five minutes and wondered at herself. She liked kids and had thought of having one or two someday in the misty future, but had never really considered herself a kid person. Yet the children had already tied themselves to her affections and they had only been here for an hour. How was she going to feel after three days?

A knock on the door interrupted her thoughts, and she realized she had forgotten about Lillian in the excitement of the children waking up, and Nathaniel’s second breakfast. The children seemed to be fine, but a doctor’s opinion never hurt, and this way if the police asked she could honestly say that she had had them looked at.

Lillian smiled at her from the doorstep, her salt and pepper hair gleaming in the morning sun. “Where are my patients?” she asked, in a no nonsense tone of voice that managed to be warm and friendly at the same time. Anita let her in and pointed to the children, earning herself a raised eyebrow. “They look fine to me.”

“Me too,” Anita said. “But since I found them in the middle of the road, I’d like to have them looked at. Considering how they were found, I thought you would be a better choice than the hospital.”

The wererat looked at her sharply, but nodded her understanding, heading towards Alex first as he was the only child not doing anything. She set her case on the table next to him and smiled with the practiced ease that only years of experience brought. “Hi Alex, I’m Dr. Lillian; I’m going to give you a little checkup. Is that okay?”

He started to nod and then stopped, his eyes widening in sudden fear as he slid off the chair and backed away.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said gently, not making any move towards him, but shooting a concerned glance at Anita, who shrugged helplessly, just as surprised as the doctor at his sudden reaction.

He shook his head and walked sideways towards the girls in the kitchen, his eyes never leaving them as he bent down next to Tess and whispered in her ear, not realizing that everyone in the room had enhanced senses and could hear everything he said. “We’re different now, like you, is that going to show up on the tests?”

The girl stiffened, her smile dropping as she too backed away from Nathaniel and pulled Liz with her, the three of them huddling together.

The adults exchanged glances, unsure how to react. It was Nathaniel who broke the silence, kneeling down in front of the children again and giving them his warmest smile. “We don’t care if you’re different, we’re different too,” he said softly.

They were all quiet for several moments, just staring before Liz finally spoke up. “I don’t think you’re different like we’re different.” She shot a glance at the others before continuing. “People have tried to hurt us before; we don’t want to go away.” Her voice got higher as she talked, the whites of her eyes now showing and all three of the children looked terrified. “They’ll test us and make us do things and hurt us!”

Anita’s heart was pounding in her ears as her rage simmered back to the surface and threatened to break free. She could read between the lines and someone had tried to experiment on these children, to test them, what kind of monster would do that? She wasn’t naive, far from it, and she knew that there were people out there who would do unspeakable things to the preternatural community in the name of science, but children? That was a whole new level of depravity and one that threatened to destroy her already shaky self control.

Stepping forward, she sat down on the ground next to Nathaniel, her head now on level with the children. “I am not going to let anyone hurt you okay? I promise, no matter what that I will protect you. No one will take you away from me.”

Tess started crying first, big glistening tears running down her cheeks, but Liz soon joined her and Anita found herself pulling both of them into her lap and holding them close, murmuring soothing nonsense as she stroked their hair. Whatever had already happened to these children Anita was determined that nothing else would, she had promised that they would be safe, and she kept her promises.


	6. Chapter 6

All three children had eventually consented to the exams, and Lillian had proclaimed all of them healthy, taking a blood sample from each child for further testing.

The breakfast had gone off without any further interruptions, and only a couple more messes, ending very satisfactorily with the three children, Nathaniel, and Zane, eating and attacking each other with the rest of the whipped cream.

When bath time was mentioned they got strangely shy, especially Alex who had turned beet red, and all three of them had insisted that they preferred showers and could do it themselves. Tess and Liz just needed to stand on something to turn the water on and off as they were too short to reach the knob.

They had just seemed embarrassed, not afraid, which Anita was grateful for. It was bad enough that she was sure they had been physically abused or threatened, and it made her furious, but if she learned that there had been sexual abuse as well, she would be sick and then someone would die.

Luckily there was more than one bathroom in the house and Alex generously offered to let the girls go first, Cherry helping Tess and Anita helping Liz.

~

Alex was in the living room sitting on the couch next to Zane, while Nathaniel cleaned up the mess in the kitchen. Kicking his heels against the couch he stared at the blue haired man, before realizing what he was doing and forcibly stilling his feet. Just because he looked six didn’t mean he had to act that way. “Why do you have fangs?”

The man smiled, revealing all four of the dainty, white, very sharp, teeth. “I remained in my leopard form too long; it causes permanent changes when you do that.” His voice was dry and amused with a lacing of something else, something darker that Alex didn’t understand.

“Your leopard form? What does that mean, are you like a werewolf or something?” he asked, trying to fight the sudden fear and surprise he felt. He knew these people said they were different, but he hadn’t had a chance to think about just what that could mean.

Zane nodded, his eyebrow raised at the evident surprise on the boys face. “I can feel your power, can’t you feel mine?”

Alex shook his head instinctively before frowning. “I’ve never tried,” he said thoughtfully. Part of him was aware that when the Granolith sent them here it changed more than just their ages—he felt different and had assumed that he and Liz were like Tess now, but maybe there was more to it.

Closing his eyes, he concentrated, trying to feel inside and out at the same time. His eyes popped back open with surprise when he realized he could feel a warm tingling sensation from Zane, and an even stronger one from Nathaniel where he was puttering about the kitchen. He could also feel a colder spot rippling with power that he determined was Anita, while Cherry felt like the two men.

Liz and Tess however were like bright hot golden lights when he closed his eyes, and if he focused he could feel them in his head, like listening to them from across a room. “Whoa.”

Zane just grinned and reached out to ruffle his hair, “See? We’re all a little different here, but that’s okay. I kind of like it that way.”

~

Warm tears ran down her face and mingled with the water from the shower. Guilt was swamping her, nearly matching the pain radiating from the core of her being. She was glad they were here, she was even glad they were children. After everything she couldn't have faced Max again, she couldn't have handled day after day on the run with him. The hurt she felt from betraying him, the anger and betrayal at what he made her do, at everything he put on her shoulders, made her want to scream. The thought of romance, of loving someone again and holding the responsibility for their happiness in her hands, terrified her, and that wasn’t just her six year old mind talking.

This new place, this new life, she thought maybe it was the Granolith's way of letting her, letting all of them start over. Tess's life with Nasedo must have been horrible, she had seen glimpses in her eyes of things she knew she couldn't imagine and knew that she deserved this more than any of them. As for Alex, he had always been there for everyone else and maybe this was his chance to have a life for himself.

So she cried, cried for everything they had lost, and everything they might gain.

When her tears had stopped and she stepped out of the shower, she felt a sudden overwhelming wave of love and warmth wash over her. The inside of her mind tingled and she could feel Tess and Alex—it was like a big mental hug and she couldn't help but smile. This new world might be strange, and from Alex she got the impression it was stranger than they could have imagined, but she wasn't alone and she never would be again.

Pulling away from them she sent a brief reassurance that she was okay, before closing what felt like a mental door. She could still feel them and knew that they were okay, as well as having a vague sense of where they were, but it no longer felt like they were there in the bathroom with her.

Anita had given her one of her smallest long sleeved shirts and it still came past her knees. Climbing up on the toilet seat so she could see in the mirror she stared at herself thoughtfully. Her hair was longer now, reaching all the way to her waist, and her eyes looked too large in her ridiculously tiny face. The shirt bagged around her unattractively and she pursed her lips, turning from side to side before smiling as an idea hit her. Reaching behind her she gathered the loose material and tied it into a knot, a lot harder than it would have been before. Not only were her hands smaller, but her fine motor skills seemed to have deteriorated along with her age.

Placing her hands on her hips she eyed herself critically before giving a satisfied smile, it still looked a little odd, but she looked less like an orphan and more like a little girl trying to copy mommy’s fashion. Folding her towel neatly she left in on the toilet seat and carried her dirty clothes out into the bedroom where Anita was waiting for her.

Climbing up onto the bedm she sat down next to the brunette woman, wondering how much longer she was going to keep them and where they would go after that. Anita looked at her and smiled, before opening her mouth and telling her she was pretty. She heard the words through a long echoing tunnel as she fell into Anita’s eyes and drowned; she was swimming in a pool of blood and there were dead things swimming with her. 

~

The whipped cream floated on top of the water as it swirled down the drain, making funny shapes and bringing a smile to her face. She knew she wasn’t really a six year old and that she should be freaking out and trying to find a way to fix it but she was having so much fun she didn’t want too. In this life she hadn’t had a childhood; her formative years had consisted of constant traveling and training, while her Guardian stole and murdered his way across the country in search of answers. She had never made pancakes, or had a whipped cream fight, or even been allowed to giggle without punishment, and she was loving every minute of it.

Her powers still hummed in the back of her mind, but they felt different, and she knew they had changed, and that she should be figuring out how, and why, and what she could do now. Her knowledge was still the same, emotionally part of her still felt like the sixteen year old she had been, but overlaying that were the emotions and mind of a six year old. The Granolith hadn’t just altered their bodies, it had in every way that mattered turned back the clock, and unless it changed its mind, she highly doubted that they were going to reach their prior ages in any way but actually growing up. Strangely enough that didn’t make her sad, or angry, or anything but happy and maybe a little relieved.

Alex and Liz had become the two people she trusted and cared for most in this life, the others weren’t the same as they had been, and in the past few weeks she’d had a few honest heart to heart’s with herself and realized that they never were going to be the same. In this life they didn’t trust her, they didn’t love her, they didn’t even want her, and that was okay. She was okay without them, and she was grateful to her new family for helping her figure that out.

When they were planning their disappearance she had already been plotting to discuss with Alex and Liz the possibility of separating from the other three and going their own way—apparently the Granolith had something similar in mind.

Suddenly there was a tug in the back of her mind and she collapsed on the floor as a pool of darkness swallowed her.

Downstairs Alex fell off the couch, Zane barely managing to catch him before his head hit the coffee table.

~

Liz was convulsing in Anita’s arms, her tiny body shaking violently, and the animator had never felt so helpless. Screaming for Nathaniel she tried to hold the little girl still, holding her finger between her teeth so she didn’t bite her tongue off. Just as suddenly as the seizure had begun it stopped, the small body hanging limply in her arms.

Nathaniel ran through the doorway, eyes serious. “Alex collapsed,” his gaze reached Liz’s body and widened in concern, “Is she okay?”

“I don’t know, she was looking at me and then she just started shaking.” The little girl moaned and her eyes cracked open, causing Anita to jump, the stress having frayed her nerves past their usual breaking point.

Nathaniel sat down on the bed next to her and rested his hand on Liz’s forehead, “She’s not warm, she’s cold,” he said to Anita, voice calm for Liz’s sake, but his eyes showed his worry. “Are you okay, sweetness?” This was directed to the child, her brown eyes now fully open and staring at them both.

“I saw...” she trailed off, shooting a glance at Anita, before her eyes turned back to Nathaniel’s. “I saw blood and death and a graveyard and a man, I think he was a vampire.” Tilting her head towards Anita again she smiled a smile that had no place on a six year old, “I think your life is crazier than ours.”


	7. Chapter 7

The three children were now downstairs curled up on the couch, Alex and Anita’s showers finished, and all three of them sipping hot cocoa with Zane while the other adults conferred.

“How many kinds of shapeshifters are there?” Liz asked the spiky haired wereleopard, the scientist in her already trying to learn and categorize this new world. The images she had seen in Anita’s head had shaken her, and the more she knew the less afraid she would be.

“Oh lots; here in St. Louis we have the leopards, the wolves of course, hyenas, rats, there’s the lions, and we have a few individuals that don’t have enough members to really be considered a group. There’s a tiger, we used to have a swan.” He shrugged, grinning at their huge eyes. “Just about anything you can think of.”

“Can you shift anytime?"

“Yes we can, but it takes a lot of energy, and we always have to on the full moon.”

After that Liz fell silent, clearly contemplating all of the information he had given her. Her suddenly six year old brain wasn’t as good at thinking things through as it had been, or she would have had more questions; things she had always known seemed to be gone and in their place were things she hadn’t cared about in years, since the last time she was this age.

“And vampires?” Tess asked after a moment; she had seen the image in Liz’s mind and was desperately curious to see if they were real. Shapeshifters she got, she had seen similar things after all, but the walking undead seemed completely weird.

“What about them?” Zane asked, truly puzzled. The shifter questions he could understand as there wasn’t a lot of public knowledge about them unless you knew someone who was a shifter. Vampires, however, had been a hot topic ever since Addison vs. Clark. and even children shouldn’t be at all surprised over their existence.

Apparently, however, these children really were different, as Tess exclaimed, “They exist?! Do they really drink blood? Do they kill people?”

“Yes, they exist, and yes, they drink blood,” Anita’s voice cut in as she walked into the living room, her voice sober. She hesitated over the next answer before deciding on a vague reply. “Some vampires kill people, but you shouldn’t meet any of those.”

If they were staying here, it was inevitable that they were going to meet Damian and Jean-Claude, if not more vampires, and she didn’t want them terrified. It went against the grain to sugarcoat the dangers of vampires, but she kept reminding herself that they were only six years old; they had plenty of time to learn the true face of the monsters. Anita sat gently on the coffee table in front of the three children, her mind swirling with questions. The children were different, that much was clear, and she needed to find out what they knew; they didn’t act like any six year olds she had ever seen, not that she'd done a lot of interacting with children of any age.

She was pretty sure that Liz at least was psychic: the things she had seen after looking at Anita, and the violent reaction to it, were very similar to how Evans, their neighborhood clairvoyant, reacted when he touched things. The other two collapsing as well indicated a strong metaphysical bond between the three; they might even be psychic as well. There were nasty people in this world and true psychics were rare—ones as young as these children and therefore as malleable were even rarer. If some of those nasty people learned about these kids... It would be bad, very bad and it was possible that someone already knew, given their obvious fear of being shown as different.

“I know that you’re afraid that bad people will come for you if they know what you can do, but I promise I will protect you. In order to do that, I need to know what you can do.” The three children looked at each other, and she had a feeling that they were conferring in the same silent way that she and Jean-Claude did. As one they turned back to her and, once again, Liz took the position of spokesperson.

“What are your powers?”

The tone the little girl used was far too cautious and adult, and Anita once again had to remind herself that wherever these children had been, in many ways they aged past their apparent years. The question was the oldest trade in the book—you show me yours and I’ll show you mine.

Gesturing to the two adults standing behind her she said. “Nathaniel and Cherry are wereleopards like Zane; they’re all part of the same Pard.”

“What’s a Pard? Is that like a pack for wolves?”

The question came from Alex and she nodded with a smile. “Yes, they’re sort of like a family.” A massively violent, dysfunctional family she thought with a sarcastic mental snort.

“You’re not a leopard, but they listen to you, why?” Liz asked, her brown eyes sharp with intelligence as she glanced at the three Shifters, then back to Anita’s petite form.

Anita frowned slightly; that wasn’t something a six year old would have noticed, at least not any of the six year olds she had met, and she wasn’t quite sure what to say. It wasn’t like she could tell them that she had shot and killed their previous leader and left them vulnerable to every other Shifter in town until she had stepped in with her protection; protection that amounted to her willingness and ability to kill anyone who threatened them.

“They didn’t have anyone in the Pard strong enough to protect them so I stepped in.” Reluctantly, grudgingly, but she had stepped in, and until a stronger leopard appeared that she trusted to take over, she was stuck with it.

“Why are you strong enough?” Liz asked intently, biting her lip as a wrinkle appeared between her eyebrows.

Alex piped in again before she could answer. “I felt your power, you’re all cold and tingly, not warm like them.” His hand waved towards the shifters as he fell silent, all three children watching her with wary eyes; their smiles disappeared into a cold little masks that didn’t quite hide their fear.

Hoping that she wasn’t about to scare them further, she kept her voice soft, and her face as warm as she could manage. “I’m a Necromancer; I raise the dead.”

“That’s not possible,” Liz said flatly, and Alex nodded, their child faces grim.

Tess just looked wary, now tempered with curiosity. “You bring them back to life? Does anyone really die here?”

“No, it’s not life. They’re zombies, but not like in the movies, they don’t eat brains.” Most of the time, she added inwardly. “I raise them for a living—sometimes lawyers want to clarify a will, or settle a case that they need the deceased’s testimony on. Sometimes a family member wants to know where they hid the family jewels, all sorts of things.” She tried to keep her voice light and inject a bit of humor, wishing she didn’t have to tell them these things, and knowing that lying would be worse.

“That’s weird,” Alex said, his voice getting squeaky.

Tess remained silent, but Liz shook her head slightly, her little face still worried, although she too refrained from speaking again.

Wanting to soothe them, and feeling guilty for bringing more fear into their lives, Anita spoke again. “It’s not dangerous if-” Her reply was cut off by the shrill ring of her cell phone. She jumped nearly off the table and pulled it out of her pocket, glaring at the Caller ID screen. It was Richard.

Gritting her teeth, she resisted the urge to chuck the phone, knowing that she really did need to take the call, and tilted the phone so that Nathaniel could see the display, then gave a resigned sigh and stood. “I’ll be right back okay?”

The children nodded, clearly still thinking over everything she had said, and she headed for the back of the house. They didn’t need to overhear what would probably be a loud and unpleasant conversation.

“What the hell happened this morning, Anita?” Richard ground out, his voice gravelly with anger. “I was running and suddenly it felt like I had stuck my finger in socket, or a lightning bolt.”

Anita rubbed her forehead and bit her tongue to hold back her immediate response; she should have realized that even with the marks closed, Richard and Jean-Claude would have felt that energy surge. Closing her eyes, she reached for that part of herself and dropped the phone. The marks weren’t closed, not anymore.

Realizing that Richard was still yelling into the phone, she bent down and picked it back up. “I’m sorry, Richard, something happened this morning and I didn’t realize what it meant. Can you meet me here tonight? Around nine?” Before he could reply she hung up the phone, tapping it against her hip as she stared sightlessly down the hallway. The marks were open but they were different, otherwise she would have felt Richard long before now, ever since whatever happened this morning.

She was sure that as soon as he awakened, she would be receiving a call from Jean-Claude as well, and she would ask him to meet her here too. Richard and he might not like each other very much right now, but this affected all of them.

That gave her just over six hours to learn more about the children, get them some clothes and things for their stay, and get them in bed before the fireworks started. Not to mention preparing herself to have both of the men in her life standing in her living room. Oh joy.


	8. Chapter 8

Clenching her fists, Anita ignored the phone that was vibrating again in her pocket. She walked back down the hall to the living room, forcing a smile on her face. “Nathaniel and Cherry, do you think you can take them shopping for some clothes and necessities?”

They both nodded and Zane pouted. “I want to go shopping.”

Anita rolled her eyes, but smiled faintly at him. “I need you here in case any of the Pard, or anyone else, stops by. I need to go to the station to talk to Dolph and run a few errands.” Like telling Bert she needed some days off, and begging Marianne to come up sooner. When were the fates, or God, or whoever, going to stop dropping messes in her lap?

Shaking her head, she tried to focus, and knelt back down in front of the kids who were still sitting on the couch. “I know you’re afraid but I promise you can trust me, us, and I will protect you. I still want to talk to you, but there are some things I need to take care of. Would you like to go shopping with Nathaniel and Cherry?”

All three of them nodded after a moment, and Liz surprised her by leaning down and giving her a hug, quickly followed by the other two. “Thank you for taking care of us, I know you don’t have to.”

Blinking back a sudden urge for tears, Anita hugged them back and smiled. “I want to. Now go have fun and maybe after shopping you can get some ice cream.”

“Yay!” the little blonde said, clapping her hands, before linking her arms with Liz and Alex and tugging them over to the two waiting wereleopards. Anita grinned and stood, feeling the strain in her knees, and reminded herself to call her Judo instructor. She had missed too many classes in the past few months and her job, her life, depended on her staying in shape.

Pulling a credit card out of her purse she handed it to Nathaniel, then remembered that Cherry’s car could barely seat two adults and handed him her car keys as well. “How about we trade cars for the day and maybe the first stop you should make is to get some car seats?”

Immediate protests filled the air as Cherry handed her the keys to her little red Mazda with a grin.

“We’re too old for car seats!”

“Only babies use those!”

Anita put her hands on her hips and surveyed their impressive pouts. “How about boosters then, so you can see out the window?”

The three children exchanged looks before Alex gave an only slightly sullen affirmative. “Fine.”

The Animator repressed a snort although her lips twitched suspiciously. “Good. I will see you later, okay?” She wanted to add in a warning to behave, but had a feeling that would go over even worse than the car seat suggestion.

All three of them nodded, and she gave Nathaniel and Cherry a look that was part gratitude and part warning, then turned the same look on Zane who just smirked at her before she turned and left, wondering when this annoyingly large house had become home.

~

Luck was with her, and there was a parking spot right in front of the doors leading to RPIT’s main office. Zerbrowski was leaning on the counter flirting with the receptionist when she walked in, and she hid a smile; at least there was one friendly face here.

“Missing me again, Anita? I would have dressed up if I knew you were coming,” the cop said with a lecherous smirk when he noticed her presence, gesturing towards his mismatched stained green shirt with mustard colored tie and faded brown slacks.

Anita just raised an eyebrow. “Like you own anything to dress up in.”

Zerbrowski gave her his irrepressible grin and took a step down the hallway. “Dolph’s waiting for you, although fair warning, I don’t think he found anything.”

Anita frowned, but followed him; if she was honest with herself, she hadn’t really expected him to find anything. Anyone powerful enough to pull off something like that was also probably powerful enough to cover up their tracks, but it hadn’t stopped her from hoping.

She had no intention of trying to send them back to wherever they had been, but the opportunity to beat whoever had given them their emotional and mental scars would be welcome, and it would be nice to know if anyone would be coming after them.

“That’s the second little girl in two weeks; don’t tell me that’s not a pattern,” Dolph was growling into his phone as they reached his office door, and they both paused, exchanging a worried glance.

“What’s going on?” Anita asked flatly, her gut filling with the tension she associated with every bloody crime scene she’d stepped foot on.

“Last week a little girl, six years old, was snatched out of her bedroom in the middle of the night, with no trace of disturbance; no open windows, broken locks, nothing but a little bit of the girl’s blood. We figured one of the parents for it until last night when it happened again. They’re trying to keep it quiet up the chain and want Dolph to declare them unrelated, don’t want a reporter getting wind of it and declaring it a serial case.”

“Stupid,” Anita said in a low tone, angry at the way the system worked even as worry tightened her throat. At least that explained Dolph’s question on the phone, but she wanted confirmation. “What did the girls look like?” The last thing she needed was to be accused of kidnapping, and while none of the children had been bleeding, and there had been no mention of a little boy, given the timing it didn’t hurt to be sure.

“The first was an African American girl, last night they took a white redhead. No physical type match, so no way to track a pattern there.”

Anita breathed a sigh of relief, definitely not Tess or Liz. She would have fought returning them their parents given the indications of emotional abuse, and it was good to know that at least for now that wouldn’t be an issue.

“I take it that doesn’t match any of the kids you picked up,” Zerbrowski said, more statement than question, his pale blue eyes not twinkling for once in indication of the seriousness of the situation.

Anita shook her head as she looked back at Dolph, still arguing into the phone. She hoped that ‘her’ kids were safe, hearing about a kidnapper on the loose had never affected her so personally before, and she was finding her sudden, unexplained fear for the children hard to handle, especially given the short time they’d been in her life.

~

Nathaniel and Cherry were watching said children in bemusement; Nathaniel was beginning to think that he should get used to that feeling around them.

Liz had requested a pen and paper before leaving for the store, and between the three children they had compiled a very detailed list of all of the necessities they would need. To his and Cherry’s surprise the list had not included a single frivolous item or toy, and had in fact included things they wouldn’t have thought of, like kid safe shampoo and body wash, children’s medicine, a small stepstool so they could reach the counter, and several other things that impressed the two adults with their thoroughness.

Right now Tess and Alex were standing on the end of the cart grinning excitedly as Cherry pushed them down the aisles, Liz following more docilely behind as she checked her list and occasionally had them stop so they could pick up things.

They had received the occasional disparaging look from fellow shoppers; Nathaniel standing out with his ankle length auburn hair pulled into a ponytail and his tight leather pants, while Cherry looked liked a blond wet dream come to life in fishnets and dark makeup. Nathaniel knew the looks would be more than disapproving if their Shifter status was known, and was grateful that the children seemed to lack the inborn prejudices of most people in this world.

He looked down when Liz tugged on his pants, her big, serious eyes staring up at him. “Why do you look so sad?”

“Just thinking about people,” was all he said as reached down and picked her up, propping her on his hip. With his slight form it looked incongruous but then again she was a very tiny little girl.

“What about people?” she persisted, tilting her head to the side as she stared directly into his eyes.

Nathaniel thought carefully about his words before replying. “Some people don’t like anything different. People know about all the weird stuff now, and there are laws saying they have to treat everyone the same, but sometimes when they find out about someone different, well, they aren’t happy about it.”

Liz nodded, nibbling on her bottom lip with a sad expression on her face before surprising him with a smile and a hug around the neck. “Well I like you, and I know you’re different, and I promise I won’t ever stop liking you.”

When she pulled back Liz saw that Nathaniel was smiling again, even if his eyes looked a little misty, and she turned her face forward, scanning along the shelves with a satisfied smile of her own. _‘We need to talk when get back to the house,’_ she thought at Tess and Alex, and nodded when their blue eyes turned towards her over Cherry’s shoulder. It was time to sort out what they knew and what they wanted, as it seemed that they might be here to stay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When Anita says bloody in reference to the crime scenes she’s not swearing but actually indicating how gory most of the scenes she goes to usually are. Also I could not find a single reference to Zerbrowski’s eye color or Cherry’s car anywhere so just picked what that I thought fit, if you disagree or can find a reference in the books let me know :-D


	9. Chapter 9

Anita had a headache again, and going to see her boss just meant that it was going to get worse. After she confirmed that neither of the little girls she had picked up were the missing children, and that she could stop by to look at the crime scenes as soon as she was done with Bert, Dolph had brusquely told her that he hadn’t found anything and that it was taking a back seat to this case, then dismissed her.

She hadn’t taken it personally, as she knew all of his attention was focused on the kidnappings—the time frame for survival of kidnap victims wasn’t nearly long enough, and when they were children it made everyone more intense.

In a way, however, the case was going to help her, as between that and ‘her’ children, she had plenty of ammunition to back up her request for a few days off. It had been her boss’s idea for her to work with the police in the first place, and if necessary she was fully willing to point that fact out.

Anita made sure to smile at Mary, the day secretary, on her way in. She had a vague recollection of Craig looking frightened when she walked by that morning, and wanted to leave a better impression this time. Besides, if you were about to piss off the boss, it was always a good idea to have another friendly face in the office.

Bert was alone in his office, so she went right in and made herself comfortable in the plush chair across from his desk. He frowned at her, but continued his phone conversation. His voice had that too natural jovialness that signified a client and rather than listening in, she found herself tuning him out as her thoughts turned to the children and wondering how the shopping was going.

She hoped that Cherry or Nathaniel had a good idea of what kids needed; maybe she would hit Zerbrowski up for advice once she got to the crime scene. Then again, maybe not, she thought with a grimace; she wasn’t sure if the teasing would be worth it.

A click brought her back to the present and she saw Bert eyeing her over his desk, hand on the phone he had just hung up. “Did you need something, Anita?” he asked dryly, leaning back in his chair and folding his hands on the desk.

“The cops need me for a kidnapping case and I have temporary custody of three children, I need the next week off.” While Anita hoped that the situation with the children and the case would have resolved itself sooner, she knew better than to expect it. Lately things were never resolved quickly, or without bloodshed. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time a problem cropped up that didn’t almost kill her.

That was probably a bad sign.

Bert was quiet for a long moment. His eyebrows had risen at the children comment, but his face was calm as he stared at her. If she wasn’t used to Jean-Claude’s impassive face, it probably would have unnerved her. As it was, it just made her impatient.

“Fine, you can have the week off, but provided this case goes well, I will be arranging an interview to promote you, and you will cooperate.”

Anita glared. “Don’t you mean an interview to promote Animator’s Inc?” she said sarcastically. He just smiled and she sighed; she should be used to the press in her face by now anyways, and she really did need the week off. “I’ll do it, but during my normal office hours, and it will be here, not at my home or anything like that. I will not answer any personal questions, or reveal any details the police don’t want released.”

Bert nodded. “Agreed, enjoy your week off.”

Anita rose to her feet, eyeing him suspiciously. That had been too easy, and she was worried that he had something up his sleeve. Finally, she turned to go, Dolph was waiting for her and she was anxious to get home. Whatever he had planned, she could deal with it later.

Lillian called her while she was in the car. “Do you have a minute, Anita?” The wererat’s voice sounded odd, and Anita frowned.

“I have twenty minutes actually, what’s up?” That was how long it would take her to get to the crime scene, a house in a nice suburban area of town quite a ways away from the business district where Animator’s Inc had offices.

“I analyzed the blood of the children,” Lillian said, her tone strangely hesitant for the usually confident doctor. “They are triplets, fraternal.”

That wasn’t common, and went a long ways towards explaining the tight bond between the three children, but was hardly unusual enough to throw the doctor, so Anita remained silent, assuming that there was more.

“I’ve never actually seen blood like theirs before. The structure is completely different from regular human blood, although the basic components are the same, and it has certain similarities to were blood.”

“Are they shifters?” Anita asked incredulously. It wasn’t thought that children that young could be shifters, and she was pretty sure that even if she hadn’t noticed that in their scent, that the pard would have.

“No, just similar. The blood had no reaction to silver, or any of the other tests we use to confirm shifter status. There’s something else though,” the doctor paused, then sighed. “This is going to sound crazy Anita, but in their cells…they glowed.”

“What?”

“I thought it was the equipment at first, so I moved to my backups, then I thought it was my eyes, so I had two other shifters take a look, and they both saw it too. It’s faint, wouldn’t be as noticeable to a non-shifter, but they definitely glow. It’s not radiation or anything like that; I honestly don’t know what could cause that reaction.”

Anita was quiet for a few moments, trying to process what she had just heard. It definitely confirmed that the children were special, and a vague suspicion that had been growing in the back of her mind that someone had experimented on these children, maybe even bred them specifically to try and get their abilities. Shaking off her thoughts to deal with later, she focused back on Lillian.

“Anything else?” When the doctor replied in the negative, she continued. “Are they healthy? No diseases or anything like that?”

“No, they’re perfectly healthy, and other than what I already told you, there are no anomalies.”

“Okay, thank you for calling, Lillian. Could you keep everything quiet, but on file? If they get sick or something, I’ll be taking them to you as long as I have them, and if they’re taken in by someone else on a permanent basis, then we may need to turn over the results.” Lillian agreed, and she thanked her again before hanging up.

Glowing. What the hell did that mean?

It wasn’t until she was pulling up to the curb at the crime scene that she realized she had said _if_ someone else took them, rather than when. Before she could put too much thought into what that meant, it was time to work, and she gratefully pushed those thoughts aside.

Her life was complicated enough already.

~

Liz licked the little pink spoon with a hum of enjoyment. Tess had given her an odd look when she ordered strawberry instead of vanilla, but Liz hadn’t felt the need to explain that just because vanilla was her favorite, didn’t mean she didn’t like other flavors.

Nathaniel left the kitchen to go start some laundry and then they were alone for the first time since waking up. _‘You first, Tess,’_ she thought at the blonde, still twirling the spoon in her mouth.

_‘Well, I don’t think we have any way of getting back unless the Granilith did it. You guys definitely have powers now, and mine aren’t the same—I tried some stuff in the car. I think we’re stuck like this.’_

Alex nodded, his container of chocolate ice cream now empty and sitting on the table in front of him, some of it still lingering at the corners of his mouth. _‘We need to make sure we stay together, whether it’s here with Anita or somewhere else.’_

Liz sobered, setting the pink spoon back into the last melting remnants of her treat and pushing it away. The thought of being separated from Tess and Alex made her stomach upset and her heart beat too fast. _‘I agree, and I think we should tell Anita about what we can do once we figure it out.’_ She wanted to add that she thought they should try and convince Anita to keep them, but she didn’t know how they could do that, or even if they should.

Just because she was willing to help them now, didn’t mean that she was ready to take on three kids full time, even if they were special.

Being little meant less responsibility, and that was nice, but it also meant that they were largely helpless in a world that catered to adults. They had no control over where they would go and that was scary—very scary.

Alex reached out and took her hand, smiling at her. “It’ll be okay, Lizzy; we won’t let them split us up.”

Liz just tightened her grasp on his hand as her eyes met Tess’s serious blue gaze, knowing the truth. In the end, they might not have a choice.

~

Nathaniel watched the three kids from the doorway to the basement, his violet eyes sad with memory. Anita liked the kids, maybe she would keep them, maybe they wouldn’t have to go through what he did. If he could spare them the horrors of the foster system, or life on the streets, he would.

Reentering the kitchen, he made sure to step loudly enough that they wouldn’t notice him, not wanting to frighten the already tense children. He smiled down at the three of them, doing his best to keep the sadness out of his eyes. “All done?”

They nodded, and Alex collected the empty containers, sliding out of his chair and carefully carrying them over to the trashcan.

Nathaniel had discovered that holding the children was a great outlet for his need for physical affection. Anita wasn’t quite comfortable yet with casual touch, even when there was no sexual motive, but the children seemed to need the cuddling just as much as he did. So he reached down and picked up Liz, propping her on one hip, before taking Tess’s hand to help her down from the tall chair.

“I think if we asked nicely, Zane would be willing to play tag with us in the back yard; does that sound fun?”

Alex and Tess nodded enthusiastically and Liz giggled as he lightly tickled her side. Tess skipped along side of him, small hand clutching his tightly, and Alex ran ahead into the living room, shouting. “Zane! Come play with us!”

Liz hugged him close, resting her head on his shoulder, and Nathaniel found all his sadness melting away. Finding Anita had been like coming home for him, and these kids had made it feel like a real family. He would figure out a way, even beg on his knees, if that’s what it took to get Anita to consider keeping them. It was too late to not get attached, and he tried to ignore the sliver of icy fear that stabbed through his heart at the thought of Anita saying no.


	10. Chapter 10

Zerbrowski poked his head into her side window as she pulled up to the curb. “About time, Anita, we’re all waiting on you.” His voice was teasing, but she could see the strain around his eyes and knew this case was hitting him hard.

“You know you like waiting for me,” Anita taunted with a smirk as she got out of the car and headed for the back, trying to keep her tone light as she pushed her problems and the thought of what might be happening to the two kidnapped children out of her mind.

Zerbrowski clapped his hands to his heart. “You see right through me, I’m madly in love with you, and wait with baited breath for your presence.”

She laughed as she pulled her crime scene gear out of her vehicle, just pulling out her gloves as they had already indicated that there was only a faint trace of blood so there was no need for her suit to protect her clothes. Her hair was already twisted into a tight bun to keep any of her loose hairs from contaminating the scene.

“Try holding your breath next time, might work better.”

He showed her a wounded expression before turning towards the house. “Little girl’s room is the back left bedroom, there is a window but it was locked from the inside, and showed no signs of tampering. Same with the front door. The blood was found on the floor next to her bed, enough that it was more than a scratch, but not enough to be life threatening.”

Anita frowned. It could definitely be something preternatural, although there were people well trained enough to get in and out of a room with no trace left behind; Edward came to mind as an example. The blood though, it felt ritualistic.

There were a few officers still at the scene along with the CSI’s; the two guarding the door nodded at her and she nodded back, glad that her reputation wasn’t shot to hell enough to make the cops stop respecting her. She caught a glimpse of the parents in the living room, husband holding the sobbing wife as they talked to a detective, before they were moving down the hall towards the only open door.

The blankets on the bed were in disarray, and there were two stuffed bears and a Barbie doll on the floor, but other than that the room looked untouched. Anita stood just inside the doorway and examined the room with her regular senses first, eyes running over the room and pausing on the small blood stain on the carpet before moving on. Looking up she scanned the ceiling as well but saw nothing, then she reached out with her other senses.

Power rolled over her in waves, and she reached out a hand to steady herself, her fingers landing on the doorknob. It felt slimy and she yanked her hand away, staring at her fingers—there was nothing there. Whatever she was feeling was metaphysical in nature, and not visible to the naked eye. It felt like death in the room, but not recent, it felt like a death far too ancient to have happened in this modern, manufactured home.

Moving forward, she ran her eyes over the room again, and noticed a faint shadow on the ceiling that hadn’t been visible before, just above the bloodstain. Frowning, she looked around again, but didn’t see any other suddenly visible marks. “Can you get me a step stool, Zerbrowski? I need a closer look at the ceiling.”

He gave her an odd look, but silently complied, leaving the room and coming back a minute later with a small step ladder. She moved it until it was right over the blood stain, careful not to put any of the legs on the actual spot, and then climbed up. She still wasn’t as close as she would like, given her small stature, but she could see the mark more clearly now.

It wasn’t just a dark shadow; there was a distinct mark underneath the greasy haze. It was hard to get a clear look at it, it seemed to blur the more she focused on it. Glaring stubbornly, she pulled on her power, feeling the cold wash over her as the hair on her arms rose. Now she could see it clearly, although she still didn’t know what it was, just that it looked vaguely familiar. “Pen and paper?”

Zerbrowski muttered as he dug through his pockets, finally handing her a small pad of white paper and a pen with a chewed end. She grimaced but took it from him, holding it up in the air as she sketched the symbol, trying to get it as exact as possible.

When she was finished, she climbed back down and sat for a moment on the top step of the stool as she tore off the page and sketched another copy of the symbol before handing the pad back to Zerbrowski. “This was definitely a preternatural crime. Whoever did this feels human, but has a lot of power. I’m pretty sure that’s an occult symbol, maybe demonology, but I’ll need to do some research. I suggest you have Tammy look at it as well, she may recognize it.”

He nodded and took the paper and pen back, studying the drawing she had made. “Anything else?”

“The little girl was alive when they took her. I don’t know if she still is or not, but,” she paused and looked him in the eye, “this isn’t my official opinion, but given the ages of the two girls, and the possible demonology connection, they may have been taken for a sacrifice. If they were, how long they live depends on how many sacrifices they need. I don’t think this is going to be the last kidnapping.”

All twinkle was gone from Zerbrowksi’s eyes and his face was grim. “I’ll let Dolph know; call us if you learn more.”

She nodded and turned to leave, rubbing at her hand to try and rid it of the slimy feeling. Why the hell would people mess with a demon? She hoped she was wrong; she had barely survived the last one she had come up against.

~

Anita stared at the symbol during every red light on the way to the Circus, its familiarity tugged at her mind. She knew she had seen it before, but where? She still hadn’t figured it out when she pulled into the employee parking lot and tucked it in her visor to look at later. Anita smiled involuntarily when she saw Jason just as she reached the bottom of the stairs, she had planned to leave a message for Jean-Claude with whoever was there, but she’d rather it be a friendly face.

Jason was frowning at her, unusual for the normally flirtatious blond, and she raised an eyebrow questioningly.

“Jean-Claude nearly woke up a couple hours ago, and every wolf in the building was called to his room. You know anything about that?”

“Maybe,” Anita said evasively after a moment, turning that information over in her mind with a slight tingling of dread. The marks had been affected more than she realized. It took a lot to wake a vampire in the middle of the afternoon, quite a lot.

He didn’t look convinced, but let it slide, and for once she blessed the fact that he was a submissive. “Can you ask Jean-Claude to meet me at my house once he wakes up?”

See, she could ask instead of order, sometimes.

If he showed up before Richard and she was able to do a bit of explaining, it might make the evening go more smoothly. Of course, it would probably piss Richard off that she spoke to Jean-Claude first, but so did everything these days, and she was tired of coddling him.

She noticed absently how pale the blue of Jason’s eyes were when compared to Jean-Claude as he nodded. “Will do. Are you okay, Anita?” he asked, the concern in his voice making her smile slightly.

“It’s just been a long day.” It would have been an exhausting day even if she’d had a full night’s sleep, and as it was it had been over twenty-four hours since she’d last slept. “Just let Jean-Claude know that I’ll explain what I can when I see him,” she stated, before turning to head back up the stairs.

She needed more coffee.

~

The children, Zane, and Nathaniel, had played outside for two hours. By the time they went back inside, they were drooping with exhaustion, and were quite content to curl up on the couch with Zane to watch cartoons while Nathaniel started dinner.

By the time Anita arrived home, dinner was ready and they all sat down to eat. It gave Anita a strange feeling to sit at the head of her table and see six faces staring back at her, three of whom were children. After so many years of living alone and eating out, it had taken some getting used to just eating regular meals and having the pard around the house, but even so, they had rarely all eaten at the same time.

It was a decidedly domestic scene, and while part of her was reveling in the sense of home she hadn’t really felt since her and Richard’s relationship went south, the other part of her wanted to run screaming for the hills before this all exploded in her face.

She resisted the urge, and when dinner, and the subsequent dessert Nathaniel had made with the leftover strawberries, was over, she followed the children to the living room to finally get some answers. They had just gotten settled on the couch with Zane, Cherry, and Nathaniel, a waiting and rapt audience, when there was a knock on the door.

Dinner had been late and the sun had set a little over half an hour before, so Anita was unsurprised to see Jean-Claude on her doorstep, dressed in his customary ruffled, white silk shirt and painted on black pants. She also wasn’t surprised by the surge of lust she felt, and knew by the glow in of his sapphire eyes that it hadn’t gone unnoticed.

His voice was rich with hidden meaning, and sent sensual shivers curling down her spine as he spoke. “It’s a pleasure to see you again, ma petite. We have much to discuss.”


	11. Chapter 11

Jean-Claude followed her to the living room and his eyes settled immediately on the three children—if he was surprised by their presence he hid it well. He studied each of them individually with seeming mild curiosity, until his gaze reached Liz and he arched one perfectly sculpted brow before turning to Anita. “Have you been keeping things from me, ma petite?”

Her exhaustion was catching up to her and Anita almost laughed at the thought of saying yes, and what his reaction might be. Shaking the urge off, she shook her head. “No, she’s not mine.”

Reaching out with her power, she probed at the mark and felt him react, his attention now fully focused on her. _‘Whatever brought them here changed me, changed the marks.’_ She pulled the memory of the glowing sphere of energy that had brought the children here to the front of her mind, and felt his interest and concern as he watched the images play out.

Turning from her, he approached the children, trying to taste their power and see how they had affected the marks he created so significantly. Alex slid off of the couch to stand in front of the two girls, his small face determined despite the flicker of fear in his blue-grey eyes.

Jean-Claude chuckled, a warm caressing sound that sent flutters through Anita’s stomach. “Fear not, mon petite guerrier, I mean you no harm.”

He sat down gracefully on the coffee table much as Anita had earlier, and managed to look as regal as he would have if it had been a throne. Show off.

“What are your names, mes chéris?”

Alex remained where he was, but it was Liz who spoke, taking on what Anita could see was her natural role of leader. “My name is Liz, this is Tess and Alex. What’s your name?” Her young voice was sweet, but confident, no hesitation or shyness, and Anita felt rather than saw Jean-Claude’s amusement.

“She may not be yours, ma petite, but the resemblance is uncanny.” Then he chuckled again softly, and Anita cursed her current celibacy for weakening her resistance to his potent allure.

“My name is Jean-Claude, ma chéri, and I am, a friend, of Anita’s.”

They digested that for a moment and then Liz spoke again. “Are you a vampire, Jean-Claude?”

There was a tiny little concentration wrinkle between her eyebrows and for once, Anita’s thoughts mirrored Jean-Claude’s on how adorable that was. The word adorable was becoming part of her vocabulary; there was something deeply wrong with that, although she was sure that her stepmother and certain of her friends would prefer that particular change over the others she’d experienced lately.

“You look like a vampire,” Alex added, his stance still defensive.

This time it was Anita who laughed as her lover answered with all due seriousness. He did look like a vampire, perfect and beautiful with a well concealed aura of danger.

“Yes I am a vampire; I am Master of this city.”

“How old are you?” Tess asked, her blue eyes glowing with excitement and her voice breathless.

Jean-Claude just smiled, his sapphire eyes mysterious. “Old enough, ma ange, old enough.”

Anita moved to sit next to him on the coffee table, leaving a bit of space between them as she still wasn’t sure where they stood. “Do you think you could tell us more about what you can do now?” she asked, looking at all three of the children. As much as she was enjoying watching this interaction, they needed to get some things out of the way before Richard showed up.

Liz nodded sharply, as if she was expecting that question, but her next words showed that she wasn’t as confident as she had been when questioning Jean-Claude. “We’re not sure of everything that we can do, but we will tell you what we know.”

The animator nodded, but remained silent, doing her best to keep a reassuring smile on her face, not her most natural expression.

Liz took a breath, honesty still felt strange although they were certainly not telling Anita everything. This world had magic to explain the abilities that in their world had come from alien heritage, so they had decided not to open that particular can of worms. Besides for all they knew, when the Granilith sent them here, it made their abilities magical as well.

Their memories were growing fainter, every hour that they were here, more like a memory of a dream than of a real life, and so they were closing that box. Now it was time to open a new one.

“I saw things when I touched you, and ever since then, sometimes I can hear people up here,” she said softly, tapping her forehead. She saw Anita and Jean-Claude’s eyes widen and hurried to continue. “Not you, not since I touched you, no one here unless I’ve touched them, but at the stores I could hear the people here.”

They looked a little relieved and she glanced at Tess and Alex. “I can always hear Tess and Alex if I want to, and talk to them that way too. They can do the same with me, but they can’t do it with anyone else. We tried, not even when they’re touching them.”

There was another ability she had discovered while playing in the yard and until now she hadn’t known whether to say anything about it or not, but seeing the encouraging smile on Anita’s face, she wanted to. She wanted her to trust them; maybe if she trusted them, she would keep them.

Raising her right hand, she pointed at the stack of glass coasters next to Jean-Claude’s leather clad thigh, and they floated into the air one at a time. She lifted them over their heads and they spun in a little dance before settling back down again when she lowered her hand back into her lap.

“So cool,” came a mutter from the corner where Zane was curled up with Nathaniel and Cherry, and Liz grinned, a little spark of happiness flaring inside of her. It was cool.

“Can all of you do that?” Anita asked, still smiling but her eyes a little wider than they had been before.

Liz shrugged and glanced at the other two. Tess frowned a little and pointed at the coasters—the top two lifted into the air but wobbled slightly, and she had to put them back down after a moment. The blonde gave a somewhat bashful smile and Liz squeezed her hand before they turned to look at Alex. He pointed and the stack wobbled but didn’t lift, he squinted and finally the top one rose slowly into the air before dropping back down with a sharp crack as it split down the middle.

He blushed and curled back into himself. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“Do not apologize, mon petite guerrier, that was quite impressive,” Jean-Claude said solemnly, his deep blue gaze taking in all three of them. “All of you were, that is a unique gift.”

Anita nodded and leaned forward so that she could take Alex’s small hand in her own. “I never use those coasters anyways,” she said with a smile and Alex smiled back before finally climbing back onto the couch with the girls and taking Liz’s other hand.

“Anything else?” Anita asked, still smiling as her surprise faded.

It was Tess who answered as she glanced around the room. “Can you stand up?” she asked Jean-Claude, tugging nervously on one of her curls.

“Certainly, ma ange.” The vampire said with a small nod of his head as he rose to his feet in one graceful movement and stepped aside so he was no longer in front of the children.

Tess smiled at him. “Thank you,” she said, before turning her gaze on the candle arrangement in the middle of the table, just behind where he had been seated. All four wicks burst into flame and she grinned before looking back at Jean-Claude. “I didn’t want to accidentally set you on fire too.”

“I appreciate that, ma ange, fire is not my friend,” Jean-Claude said gently as he exchanged a look with Anita. That was definitely a powerful gift, and not one any vampire would be comfortable around—she was going to need a lot of protecting.

The only other firebug she had met had been a vampire himself, and he had killed himself by latching onto another vampire and burning them both alive. It was not a pleasant memory. It would be best if no one outside of this room, and maybe a few select friends, were aware of this particular gift. Even humans were afraid of pyrokinetics. Anita took a breath and kept her smile going; trying to ignore the little voice inside of her that told her she could never turn these children over to foster care. “And you, Alex?”

The little boy shook his head and shrugged. “I don’t know; I think there’s something else, but I don’t know what it is.”

“That’s okay,” Anita said firmly, and then rose to her feet. “Now I’m sure you’re all tired, and I need to talk to Jean-Claude about some other business, so why don’t you go brush your teeth and then Nathaniel and I will come put you to bed.”

They gave a few token protests about not being babies, but she could tell they were tired, and were smart enough to know that the adults wouldn’t talk with them around, so they headed for her room and the bathroom connected to it where Nathaniel had stored their supplies after shopping.

“Ma petite, I have never seen you in such a maternal light before,” Jean-Claude said with a small smile that she was sure would have been wider if he wasn’t aware of her glare.

“Drop it, Jean-Claude, we have a lot to talk about and I think we both want to finish before Richard gets here.”

Jean-Claude’s smile remained, but his eyes sobered and he nodded. “Yes, I think that would be best for everyone. Go tuck in les enfants, and then we will begin.”


	12. Chapter 12

Unfortunately, Richard arrived before Anita had finished putting the three to bed—a surreal experience in its own right—and she returned to the living room to find him looming in the corner. He was alternating between glowering at Jean-Claude, who looked icily calm, and staring at the hallway as if willing her to appear.

Although once she did, he didn't look too happy about it.

She sighed and wished she had her gun. It wasn’t that she wanted to shoot him, much, but she felt calmer when she was armed. She was pretty sure that wasn’t the healthiest emotional response, but it was a little too late to change that facet of her personality now.

She didn’t want to sit down, didn’t want to leave Richard standing over both her and Jean-Claude, giving him the emotional advantage. But this was one ‘discussion’ that she didn’t want to escalate into the usual screaming match, because there were three children just down the hall who didn’t need more trauma added to their lives. So, gritting her teeth, she sat down on the opposite end of the couch from Jean-Claude and forced a less angry look on her face.

Cherry and Zane were staying over that night, giving the children an extra layer of protection, but they and Nathaniel were hanging out in one of the back bedrooms in an attempt to keep from aggravating the temperamental Ulfric further. It galled to cater to him like that, but again, the presence of the children was helping her keep a rein on her own temper.

There was silence for several moments as they all avoided starting the confrontation, and in an unusual move it was Jean-Claude, the calmest of all of them, who spoke first. “Anita’s marks have been married to ours, but all of them have changed. They are not acting as they should and we must determine exactly how different they are.”

Anita looked between Richard and Jean-Claude. “You two are already married to your marks,” she stated flatly, not quite sure if she was angry or not, or if she had any right to be if she was.

“Oui, ma petite, neither of us could afford to show weakness.”

Richard didn’t speak, but his angry, dark eyes said everything for him.

Anita digested that and let most of her own anger fade away, knowing how important it was that neither the pack nor any other vampires thought that Richard or Jean-Claude were weak enough to attack.

Everything was too complicated now, every action or inaction of hers had consequences that spread far beyond her own issues, and the loner within her wanted to run screaming for the hills. Damn responsibility.

The discussion that night provided nothing useful other than the knowledge that despite the marks being married, they could block each other out much more completely than was usual per Jean-Claude. As for other side effects and how they would be affected long term, it was just too soon to tell, although she had gotten both men to agree to a meeting with Marianne. Also, amazingly enough, only once had she had to shush Richard with the reminder that there were three six-year-olds trying to sleep.

His reaction to knowing that she had temporary custody of three children had been a wounded silence and a quick exit soon after, which spared him the sight of Jean-Claude’s good night kiss that sent desire singing all the way to her toes.

After that it was an all too short stretch of sleep, and then back to trying to figure out all of the current mysteries in her life. Marianne ended up being delayed so the next few days were spent looking at the first crime scene and finding the same symbol, which neither her nor Tammy could remember the origins of, although the witch had confirmed that it was familiar to her as well.

So then she had moved onto pouring over all of her old college textbooks, and every piece of research material regarding the supernatural she’d picked up over the course of her career.

Two days into her week off, and before she’d found her answer, a third girl was taken.

~

She’d been out to lunch with Nathaniel and the triplets, and they only had the one car, so she was forced to take all four of them to the crime scene. As soon as she pulled up to the curb next to the house swarming with policemen, Liz started to shudder, wrapping her arms around herself and closing her eyes as she shook almost as violently as she had in Anita’s arms that first day.

The other children seemed unaffected, although worried, and Nathaniel leaned back and unbuckled her from the booster seat, pulling her into his lap as he and Anita exchanged concerned glances.

“What’s wrong, sweetie?” Anita asked in a gentle voice that she hadn’t known she’d possessed until three days ago, when these three had dropped into her life and spent every subsequent hour worming their way into her hard won affections.

Liz’s chocolate brown eyes opened and revealed a glassy sheen that had nothing to do with tears. “She was so scared. The scary man came into her room and she tried to scream, but she couldn’t, and he hurt her with the knife and she was so afraid.”

Anita blanched and pulled back the hand that had been reaching for the little girl, not wanting to add her own horrors if Liz was extra sensitive at the moment. “Do you know what the scary man wanted?” Liz shook her head, curling herself deeper into Nathaniel’s embrace, her eyes still hazy and distant, and Anita knew she was seeing things no one else could. “Do you know what he looks like?”

She nodded hesitantly, and Anita felt a tiny surge of hope. “Can you stay right here and wait for me? I need to go see what happened, and then I’m going to take you to the station so you can tell a very nice man what you saw, so he can draw a picture of the scary man to help us find him.”

Liz nodded again, her eyes clearing as she focused on Anita and gave her a shaky smile. “I’ll be okay ‘Nita, you go help the police.”

Anita smiled back at her and got out of the car, glancing back one more time to see Liz tucking her head into Nathaniel’s neck as he started speaking to all three children, before jogging towards the front door of the house and being waved through by Detective Clive Perry, who greeted her with his usual polite smile.

She was directed to the second door on the right down the hall, where Dolph and Zerbrowski were waiting in a very pink room, looking as worn and tired as she felt. Before they could speak, she held up her hands, having spent the jog working out what exactly she wanted to say.

“I have something that might help. One of the kids I found is a sensitive. She’s in the car and she could feel what happened here as soon as we pulled up, and she thinks she can describe what the man looked like. I figure I’ll sit her down with the sketch artist at the station after I’m done here.”

Zerbrowski looked gob smacked, but Dolph just looked thoughtful, he opened his mouth to speak and she shook her head preemptively. “I will not bring her in here to see if she can pick up more. She’s only six, and seeing these things gives her seizures if they’re strong enough. She needs protecting just as much as the little girls we’re looking for.”

Dolph nodded, shoulders slumping ever so slightly, and she knew he agreed. If the situation wasn’t what it was, he probably would never have thought to ask. Instead he gestured to the all too familiar blood stain on the carpet. “Is the symbol the same? Tammy still can’t see it; all she sees is a shadow.”

Anita stepped forward and onto the step stool they had ready just for this, and pulled on the cool electricity of her power, pushing aside the greasy haze to see the circle that was so permanently burned into her brain that she’d started dreaming about it. Sighing, she climbed down from the stool and gave them a short nod. “Still no evidence other than the blood?”

Dolph nodded back, his eyes showing the same frustration she felt and she looked away, scanning the room through the lens of her necromancy, but saw nothing else, just the overall aura of death and fear that she had felt in both of the prior crime scenes.

“I’ll meet you at the station; hopefully the sketch will help you find him.”

Dolph nodded and grunted his acceptance, and Zerbrowski gave her an encouraging smile cleverly disguised as a leer, and then she left, eager to be away from the clinging, tainted feel of the cotton candy pink bedroom and the feeling in the pit of her stomach that this was far from over.


	13. Chapter 13

The triplets sat on the cold plastic chairs in the hallway next to RPIT’s offices, Nathaniel still holding Liz in his lap as they waited for Anita to find the sketch artist. 

Once they were away from the crime scene, Liz had calmed down and stopped shaking, but she was still obviously feeling the effects of what she’d seen. Despite the reason, something he would have spared her if he could, Nathaniel was reveling in her clinginess, using the comfort of her cuddling to relieve his own worries over the children. 

He knew what it was like to be different, to sense things that normal people couldn’t. Being a child, especially a child without a family, was hard enough without adding supernatural issues to the mix, and with every inch of his scarred soul he wanted to protect them from the horrors he had seen and experienced. 

Anita was his safe haven, and he knew she could be theirs as well. That was why he’d asked her to take them all to lunch to begin with, and done everything he could to make sure she spent time with them these past few days. He knew that underneath her tough exterior, once she let someone in and considered them hers, she never let go, and he desperately wanted her to see the children as hers so he wouldn’t have to let them go either. 

The soft squeak of Anita’s sneakers, barely audible to human ears, came towards them, followed by the low click of male dress shoes. Anita knelt down in front of them and took Liz’s small hand in her own, using her free hand to gesture to the slightly overweight middle aged man standing behind her. “This is Mr. Turner. He draws pictures for the police, and he’s going to ask you questions so he can draw the man you saw. Is that okay?” 

Liz nodded and let Anita help her off Nathaniel’s lap, following her towards a small conference room after Anita silently asked Nathaniel to stay with the other two. 

Once they had disappeared behind the wooden door, Tess crawled into Nathaniel’s lap and peered up at him with wide, unblinking blue eyes while Alex scooted one chair down to be closer to them. “Is she going to be okay?”

“Anita will keep her safe,” he said solemnly as he hugged her close, understanding the fear they felt of being separated. It was the same fear he had felt when he lost Nicky and was all alone. 

“I don’t want to find a new home; I want us to stay with you,” Tess murmured with a small sigh that tugged at his heart, resting her head on his chest as one of her hands stole across his lap to grasp Alex’s. 

“I want that too,” Nathaniel whispered softly, closing his eyes and letting himself pretend for a moment that this was forever. 

~ 

That was how Anita found them when she came back fifteen minutes later with Liz, who now had a small smile on her face, and was carrying three purple lollipops in her free hand. Dropping Anita’s hand, she climbed up next to Alex and started tickling him until the sad expression left his face as he tried not to laugh. “Stop it, Lizzy!” 

Liz just grinned and then leaned forward to whisper in his ear, the two of them cracking identical mischievous grins before turning and starting to tickle Tess and Nathaniel instead. 

Anita couldn’t stop her own smile when the four of them dissolved into giggles as they all tickled each other, Nathaniel looking the most carefree she’d ever seen him, and all three children sporting smiles that threatened to split their faces. It was a rare moment of peace in their lives, even in the midst of the stress of the kidnapping case, and something inside of her winced at the thought of what it was going to do to Nathaniel, to all of them, when the children had to leave. 

She knew Nathaniel wanted to keep them, she wasn’t stupid. She’d given thought to it herself, especially after learning the extent of their gifts and remembering her own pained childhood, surrounded by people who didn’t understand her necromancy and the constant feeling of being considered a freak. 

But her life wasn’t safe by even the faintest stretch of imagination, and if one of them got hurt because of the situations she was constantly involved in, well she didn’t think any of them would get over it and she would never forgive herself—it was a risk she wasn’t prepared to take. 

No matter how much Nathaniel’s gorgeous violet eyes pled with her, or Jean-Claude oh so subtly hinted that he wasn’t against the idea of keeping ‘les infants’ around. Of course in his case, it was about keeping powerful potential where he could keep an eye on it, rather than Nathaniel’s genuine affection, but she was doing her best to ignore both of them. 

Sighing, she scooped up the lollipops from where they had landed on the floor and cleared her throat, causing four blushing and happy faces to turn and look at her as she held the treats out. Liz and Alex hopped down from the chairs, Liz brushing off her favorite new jean skirt before each child took one from her hand. Nathaniel stood up, swinging Tess onto his hip, and the little blonde leaned forward to take the last one. 

“Did you help the man draw the picture, Lizzy?” Alex asked, linking his free arm through his sister’s after handling Anita their lollipop wrappers. 

Liz nodded instead of replying again, already sucking on the purple candy, and Alex tilted his face up to look at Anita. “Can we go home now? I’m hungry again!” 

Tess and Liz giggled around their suckers and Anita smiled down at him, taking Liz’s free hand so she could lead them out of the station, once again trying to ignore the pang she felt at his use of the word home. “Yes we can.”

~ 

When they got home Nathaniel made the kids a snack, and then they actually volunteered for a nap, largely Anita believed, because they were still worried about Liz. Less than half an hour after they fell asleep, Marianne showed up. The witch took one look at Anita and frowned. “What have you been doing to your marks?” 

Anita couldn’t help a dry, bitter, chuckle as she made herself another cup of coffee and joined her at the kitchen table. “That’s what I’m hoping you can tell me, but first.” She slipped a hand in her pocket and pulled out the slightly battered piece of paper she’d sketched the crime scene symbol on and slid it across the table towards the blonde woman. “I’m hoping you can tell me what this is.” 

Marianne paled as soon as her eyes took in the symbol, and she looked at Anita in shock. “Were did you see this?”

“At a crime scene,” Anita stated, arching an eyebrow at the vargamor. She wasn’t allowed to mention that it was at the crime scene for the missing girls, Dolph would have her hide if a possible demonic connection was linked to the press. 

“This is an evil symbol, Anita. Some practitioners believe it can be used, along with the proper ritual, to summon a demon that can grant immortality. But life isn’t free, and the cost is the lives of others—no one sane would risk it.” 

Anita stood up, already reaching for the phone. “Do you know anything else about the ritual?” 

Marianne shook her head and Anita’s hand had just touched the phone when it rang, scaring her almost out of her skin. 

It was Dolph. “Get down to the station; we think we have a lead on the sketch.” He hung up before she could tell him what she had found, and she glared impotently at the phone for a moment before turning back to her visitor. 

“The children are sleeping and it’s been kind of a stressful day, so I don’t want to wake them up. I need to go talk to the police; would you be willing to come with?” 

The witch nodded, her eyes straying to the symbol on the table again. Anita switched the coffee to a to-go mug and made sure Nathaniel and Cherry, both staying to watch the kids, didn’t need anything before they left. In the car, Anita couldn’t help but chuckle again, speaking out loud, but more to herself than her companion. “My life’s never going to get less crazy, is it?” 

Marianne just gave her a knowing glance and Anita sighed, some small part of her, the part of her that wanted to keep the children, wishing it was less true.


	14. Chapter 14

The station was bustling with activity when they arrived, and she was directed to a larger conference room where Dolph, Zerbrowski, and two other officers she knew by sight, but not name, were watching what appeared to be a security video. Dolph spotted her right away and came to the door to meet her, eyeing Marianne warily.

“She’s a friend of mine, Dolph, and she recognized the symbol. It’s definitely demonic.”

He nodded shortly. “I appreciate the help, ma’am, but I’m going to have to ask you to wait in the hall while I speak with Anita.”

“Of course, officer,” Marianne said with a winsome smile, and squeezed Anita’s arm encouragingly before heading down the hall to the same plastic chairs the children had sat in not long before.

As soon as she was out of hearing distance Dolph turned back to Anita. “Are those little girls still alive?”

Anita hesitated, and then nodded. “I think so. She didn’t know the details of the ritual, but human sacrifice is almost a given, and judging by how many he’s taken so far, I think there will be two more kidnappings before he’s ready.”

He raised an eyebrow and she clarified. “The five points of a pentagram, common base symbol for rituals. I might be wrong, he might need six, but either way, the faster we find him, the better.”

He grunted and nodded his understanding. “We put out the sketch and a motel owner called, said he had stayed there a couple nights under the name Nathan Carter.” Gesturing behind him to the TV screen, he continued. “We have a video, confirmed that he matches the sketch, but unfortunately haven’t found any trace of him since he checked out yesterday, and there weren’t any shots of his car.”

“Where was the motel?”

“About two blocks from the Blood District,” he replied with a resigned tone. “The room had already been cleaned and we weren’t able to find any trace evidence we could pin on him, too much traffic.”

“So basically we’re nowhere,” Anita said bluntly, and sighed when he nodded. “Well I have some other things to take care of; if my friend remembers anything else about the ritual, I’ll give you a call.”

“Just be ready if we find him, you’re the only one whose been able to sense him, or find anything.” Left unspoken was the fact that she was also their best shot at taking whoever or whatever he was down, with a minimum of casualties.

She nodded and then turned on her heel to leave, Marianne joining her as they walked back out into the humid summer evening. Hopefully they’d find him soon.

“Would you be willing to meet with the other members of my triumvirate to look at their marks?” she asked the witch as they got back into her car and Anita pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. On Marianne’s nod, she quickly dialed Richard, already feeling Jean-Claude start to stir as dusk approached. 

“What do you want, Anita?” her once lover asked, his voice somewhere between resigned, tired, and angry.

Out of respect for the vargamor sitting next to her, Anita did her best to keep her own anger out of her voice. “Marianne is here and willing to look at the marks. Can you meet us at the Circus?”

“Why there? Why can’t we meet at your house?” he growled out, anger winning over the rest of his emotions.

“Because my house has three children in it, Richard, and I don’t trust you to control your temper,” she snapped, unable to contain her frustration any longer.

Instead of snapping back, he laughed, a low and bitter chuckle. “Can’t trust Richard the monster around the kiddies. Can you trust yourself around them, Anita? What about your temper?”

The words were dark and cutting and Anita found herself at a loss, pain stabbing through her at the accusation in his tone, and the memory of what could have been flooding through their bond.

“I’ll be there, Anita,” he finally said quietly, a hint of apology in his tone before the line went dead with a soft click.

Tucking her cell phone back in her pocket, Anita did her best to blink back the tears as she gripped the steering wheel and pulled out of the parking lot, all the while ignoring Marianne’s concerned and empathetic gaze.

Damn love all to hell.

~

Liz lay in the middle of the bed, Tess and Alex on either side of her, each holding one of her hands as they conversed silently.

_‘Why was I the only one who saw it? You guys saw it last time.’_

_‘I think we blocked it. Seeing things is your power, Lizzy, we only saw it with ‘Nita because of this connection.’_

There was a brief silence between them as they exchanged feelings rather than words, fear, uncertainty, and warm affection intermingling equally.

 _‘Do you guys remember where we’re from? I try, but…it’s all really fuzzy,’_ Liz asked hesitantly.

_‘I think, I think we were older?’_

_‘I think so too, Alex, but I can’t remember either. I hope no one’s looking for us,’_ Tess replied, tilting her head so that she could look at the other two.

Liz sat up on the bed, pulling the other two up with her. “I don’t think so; I think it’s just us. We need to stick together.”

A sudden noise from the door startled them, and they looked up to see Nathaniel leaning in the doorway, watching them with a soft smile on his face. “It’s not just you; you have us now, me and Anita, and Zane and Cherry.” Then his small smile turned into a wider grin. “Now I was thinking of making homemade pizzas for dinner tonight and I need to go to the store. I could use some help picking out ingredients… if only I had three little helpers?”

The three kids exchanged somewhat shameful grins, before all racing off the bed to tackle Nathaniel’s legs, faces turned up to meet his laughing violet gaze. “Can we get some Tabasco sauce?” Tess asked, batting her eyelashes pleadingly.

Nathaniel gave her a strange look, but nodded. “Sure, we can get whatever toppings you want.”

“Yay!”

The auburn haired shapeshifter laughed softly and bent down to pick up the two girls, heading towards the front door with Alex following close behind.

Cherry had her Mazda back from Anita, but they had gotten a second set of booster seats that just barely fit in the back of the car. Zane pouted at being left behind again, but there wasn’t room in the car for one more adult, so he stayed at the house while Cherry, Nathaniel, and the triplets headed for the grocery store. Picking out toppings didn’t take as long as he expected, so Nathaniel was coaxed into a detour to the bookstore after Liz made her eyes go bigger than he thought possible without shifting powers.

Liz was practically salivating at the thought of getting some books on the science of this new world. She may have no longer remembered much about her prior life, but the interests and base personality had carried over, and her passions were one thing that hadn’t changed. Tess and Alex were more interested in the history of this world, and so Cherry led them to that section while Nathaniel kept an eye on Liz, worried that she would see something while they were in public and have another attack. 

The tiny brunette was completely absorbed by the books she found and quickly carried a stack over to one of the plush chairs to sort out the ones worth keeping. Tess joined her a little while later, mostly bored with the store, while Alex had dragged Cherry over to the music section.

After a few minutes, and just before Nathaniel was getting ready to tell them that it was time to go, Tess poked Liz in the arm. “Come on, Lizzy, I need to use the bathroom.”

Liz frowned and looked sadly at her stack of books, but stood up and handed the two she liked best to Nathaniel. “Do you want me to get Cherry?” The girls blushed and shook their heads and he led them over towards the bathroom, waiting just outside the door.

Three short minutes later, he heard two high pitched screams.

Nathaniel slammed through the bathroom door, uncaring if any other women were in there, and stopped cold when he saw that it was empty. He could smell the faint traces of blood that were speckled on the floor and his heart almost burst from fear, and anger, and guilt. He fell to his knees on the tiled floor, tears burning in his eyes. He never should have let them go in alone.

This was all his fault.

Cherry appeared behind him bare seconds later, carrying an almost hysterical Alex, who struggled out of her arms and flung himself past the shifters to pound uselessly on the linoleum in the middle of the horrifyingly red splatters.

“No, no, no! This isn’t supposed to happen! We’re supposed to be safe here!” he wailed, and Nathaniel came out of his own fear induced haze long enough to pull the now sobbing boy into his arms and hold him tight.

“We’ll find them, we will, and Anita will kill whoever did this,” Nathaniel promised through his own tears, feeling an unfamiliar cold rage burn inside him and intermingle with the all too familiar fear.

She would find them, she had too.

~

The room was tense with silence. Marianne had requested that they all sit close to each other so that she could see how their auras interacted, and sitting on the couch in Jean-Claude’s office was the closest physically that the three of them had been in so long that Anita couldn’t remember the last time.

She’d probably blocked it out, she thought with a silent sigh. Usually if they were this close, sex or death was a possibility, if not both.

Luckily the witch’s presence had kept the verbal sniping to a minimum, and physical violence had yet to make an appearance, although she wasn’t ruling it out given the self hate pouring off of Richard in waves. Sometimes she wished that she was big enough to shake him like a rag doll until he got the hell over his stupid issues, neatly ignoring her own place in them.

Most of the time she knew that nothing would ever get him over it, and that she should just accept that the man she’d fallen in love with was never going to be hers again, and that she shared the blame for it. That thought sent her straight from irritation into depression, and she cursed herself for suggesting this meeting. She was so sick of her love life making her miserable.

Marianne hummed under her breath and straightened imperceptibly, gaining an aura of authority that had all three of them shifting uncomfortably on the leather couch. “Your marks are definitely married and your auras blend seamlessly with each other, but there is still a distinct measure of control and separation that each of you maintain, which I believe Jean-Claude,” here she inclined her head towards the vampire, “said is unusual.”

“Is it bad or dangerous?” Anita asked, trying to ignore the conflicting emotions of curiosity and irritation coming from the men on either side of her.

“On the contrary, I think in the long run, this will be better for the three of you, for a few reasons. The first being that with a blending like this, there would normally be a bleed over of your individual powers, that may still occur, but not to the degree it would have, and you will retain more control.”

At those words, there was a surge of calculating glee from the Master of the City, and Anita fought the urge to roll her eyes. Of course he would see this as a gain in his power. 

Richard sent his agreement through the bond, and for a moment, amusement overwhelmed the more negative emotions swirling between them.

“But that is not the most significant effect,” Marianne stated firmly, interrupting their introspection and drawing all eyes back to her. “I do not believe that you would all die at this point if one of you were to perish. You would be seriously affected, and take a long time to recover, but your lives are no longer bound to each other.”

Anita felt the blood drain out of her face as fear and elation surged through her, no longer able to tell who among them originated the emotions. That was big news, and not news they should go spreading around. If other triumvirates learned of this, they might try to duplicate it, and she would be hard pressed to protect the children if the Council was after them.

Not to mention the other possible ramifications, driven home as she felt a surge of hope from Richard, and knew that the Ulfric saw this as a sign that maybe he wouldn’t be tied to them forever. She tried to find it in her to be hurt by his joy and failed. Her life would be a lot simpler if Richard was no longer a part of it, and as long as he was tied to her and Jean-Claude, that day would never come.

The shrill ring of her cell phone pierced the dead silence and she jumped, heart thudding against her rib cage. “Damn it,” she swore as she dug it out of her pocket and pressed it to her ear.

“Anita?” It was Nathaniel, and he sounded desperately afraid with just the tiniest thread of anger in his voice, something she was unaccustomed to hearing from him. The sound propelled her to her feet and her heart began to beat faster instead of slowing down—something was wrong, horribly wrong.

“What happened?” she asked flatly, and prayed that it wasn’t the children.

Unfortunately, her prayers came a little too late.

“It’s the girls, they went into the bathroom and someone took them. I heard them scream and there’s some blood, but they’re gone. I can’t even smell where they went.” He was sobbing by the end of his short speech, and she could hear Alex crying in the background.

“Where are you?” Someone was going to die today, and she knew her voice and eyes had gone cold and empty, as empty as she thought her soul was sometimes. In this case she was glad of it; killing was so much easier when you didn’t care.

Once she got the location of the bookstore out of him, she promised that she was on her way and told him that he shouldn’t go anywhere because she was sending the police. Then she hung up without a goodbye and dialed Dolph. 

“My girls were taken, Dolph. They were at the bookstore downtown across from the botanical gardens and someone snatched them right out of the bathroom. Two of mine are there with Alex; I’m on my way now.” She barely waited for his grunted reply that the squad would be there before hanging up and grabbing her jacket from Jean-Claude, who had risen to his feet and was watching her with worried eyes.

“Can you take Marianne back to my place?” she asked Richard, and off his nod turned to go, ignoring the look from Jean-Claude and his pushing at the bond, instead slamming her shields up as high as they could go.

He knew he couldn’t come, the cops wouldn’t like it, and she needed to go now. With both Tess and Liz now gone, if the bastard who did this only needed five little girls, then he was done, and he could be already starting the ritual. There was no time to waste.

Not even for the comfort his embrace might bring. She could break down later, after her kids were safe.


	15. Chapter 15

The bookstore was swarming with cops when Anita arrived, and she found the sight gratifying, if terrifying on a level she’d never really felt before. Crime scenes were never personal; they couldn’t be if you wanted to survive this job with your sanity intact. 

This sense of fear was entirely new, and entirely unwelcome.

Nathaniel stood by the bathroom, still holding a sobbing Alex and staring blankly into space, while Cherry hovered close behind and shot anxious glances at the nearby police officers. 

Dolph approached her before she reached the three of them and she paused, looking at him with a stare she knew was overly challenging but unable to help herself. Anger she could handle, fear not so much.

“I think he knows we’re on to him and it’s making him sloppy because we actually picked up a print this time. They’re running it through the system, but we still have no idea how he got into the bathroom, or out again, without anyone noticing.”

“Tammy already looked the scene over?”

“She didn’t pick up anything concrete. She could tell that power had been used, but she said she has no ‘affinity’ for it.” Dolph’s tone indicated his distaste for such a vague disclaimer, but Anita empathized with the witch—some things you just could not sense unless you had the same power as the person you were looking for.

Anita excused herself from Dolph and poked her head in the bathroom, feeling the cold rush of power sweep over her in waves and raise all the hair on her arms. It was stronger than it had been at the other scenes, and darker, tainted with a feel of evil that she would have confirmed as demonic even without Marianne’s identification. 

Nothing felt like that but a demon, or someone drawing on a demon’s power, and the ball of dread that had been growing in her stomach ever since she had heard Nathaniel’s voice over the phone got larger, as she swallowed against the rising feel of bile in her throat.

You couldn’t shoot a demon, and if this person was drawing on a demon's power, there was no guarantee bullets would work on him either. Even if they found the girls in time, there was a chance this was one battle she would lose. 

Glancing over her shoulder she saw Alex turn his face out from Nathaniel’s chest to look at her—his blue eyes were rimmed with red and there were tears streaking constantly down his pale cheeks. Nathaniel’s hair covered his face and she could see his shoulders shaking, even Cherry looked lost and sad.

Failure wasn’t an option; this was one confrontation she had to win because there simply wasn’t any other choice. Liz and Tess were going to survive and that was all there was to it. Now they just had to find them.

Dolph had followed her to the bathroom, with Zerbrowski wandering over while she was examining it. Both of them almost stepped back at the look on her face, when she turned to face them. “We need to find them. Now.”

“We’ve posted his picture on the news and every patrol is looking for him, we even brought in the dogs but none of them would get close to the bathroom. We’re doing all we can.” He didn’t finish his sentence but she could see the frustration and resignation in his eyes, he didn’t think they would win this one either.

Anita clenched her fists, trying to think. Nathaniel had already said that he couldn’t smell anything other than the blood, but maybe if she got Jason down here… Before she could finish that thought, she felt someone tugging on her pants leg, and looked down to see Alex staring up at her, no longer crying, his eyes cold and hard and empty in a way that no child’s eyes should be.

“I know where they are.”

The words took a moment to penetrate, but when they did, Anita dropped to her knees in front of him, taking his small hand in hers. “How do you know that Alex?”

“I can feel them, up here,” he said firmly, tapping his forehead with his finger. Zerbrowski made a surprised noise behind her, but she ignored him in favor of focusing on the importance of this knowledge.

“If we get in the car, do you think you can lead us there?” 

He hesitated, and then nodded. “They’re okay, but they’re afraid, and the bad man, he’s very happy.” His voice was soft at first, suiting his age, but it hardened at the end and he looked up at her again with those cold eyes. “You need to kill him.”

The two hardened policemen standing behind her sucked in their breaths at that shocking statement, but Anita just nodded, meeting his gaze without hesitation. “I will, I promise.”

Standing up she kept his hand in hers and looked at Dolph. “You got the warrant?” He nodded and she smiled grimly. She would have killed him anyways, but it was best to work with the law, at least when you had witnesses.

“Good, then get whoever you want on this and let’s go. Just make sure it’s clear that everyone follows my lead—we do not need someone making a stupid mistake that gets those girls killed. This man is trying to summon a demon and anyone who can’t handle, or believe that, needs to stay far away.”

She barely waited for his nod before turning and heading for the car, Alex almost running beside her with Nathaniel and Cherry close behind. 

It was time to end this.

~

Tess clutched Liz’s hand, desperately wishing that she would wake up because she couldn’t handle the crying of the three other little girls, and her own fear, without her.

The man had appeared behind them when they were washing their hands, eyes bloodshot and gleaming manically as he grabbed them before they could move. They had screamed when he pulled out a knife and sliced it across both of their arms.

The room had started to spin, and then suddenly they were somewhere else, somewhere dark that stank of blood, and fear, and other things she didn’t want to think too closely about. He had thrown them onto the ground and Liz had hit her head against a crate, collapsing limply on the floor.

It wasn’t until he left, locking the door behind him and plunging them into darkness, that Tess had realized that they weren’t alone. There were three other girls here, the ones Liz had been helping the police find. She and Alex had both felt edges of the fear and anger Liz had picked up on at that house, and at the police station, but now Tess was the one afraid, and she could feel Alex’s fear through their bond even though it was strangely muted and for some reason she couldn’t speak to him.

The man who had them, he was evil, as evil as a memory she had of a tall man she thought she might have called father. Everything was wrong; her arm was throbbing from the cut, and Liz wouldn’t wake up, and the other girls wouldn’t stop crying, helpless little sobs that grated on her like nails on a chalkboard.

She didn’t want to be a kid anymore; she didn’t want to be helpless, and she didn’t want to die.

_‘We’re not going to die. He is.’_


	16. Chapter 16

Tess pulled Liz into a sitting position and hugged her. _‘Are you okay?’_

Liz nodded and squeezed the blonde’s arms encouragingly, while letting her gaze rove over the room before coming to rest on the huddled forms of the other girls she could barely make out in the dark. _‘I’m okay; I wish we could talk to Alex though.’_

 _‘Me too,’_ Tess said sadly, but felt some of her fear lessen at her sister’s obvious calm. _‘I can’t start a fire either, I tried. I think the bad man’s doing something to stop us.’_

Liz turned to face her, biting her lower lip in concentration. _‘Nita is coming, I can feel it, but she might not get here in time.’_ She reached out and took both of Tess’s hands in hers. _‘If we tried together, do you think you could start a fire then?’_

The other girl hesitated, and then nodded. _‘I think so; I can still feel you so it should work.’_

Liz nodded her understanding, and then stiffened as they heard a noise on the other side of the door. _‘We might only get once chance so wait for me to say, okay?’_

Tess squeezed her hand to indicate she understood, and then they both turned to face the slowly opening door, fear and hope warring for control over their emotions, the same two emotions they could feel through the barely-there bond with their brother.

~

Across town, three frantic adults and one terrified child were packed into a sedan that was moving through traffic at more than legal speeds, followed by several police cars with blazing sirens.

Anita spared a brief thought that it was quite possible people thought she was a suspect in some kind of car chase, but brushed it away when Alex pointed commandingly to the left. It was the most unusual pursuit she’d ever been a part of, all directions given by a six-year-old in a booster seat.

Her mind would not stop picturing the result of the last demon she’d seen summoned, and the thought of that happening to the girls—it was enough to make her scream. Both Jean-Claude and Richard had been trying to get through her shields for the past twenty minutes, her fear and anger filtering through the blocks she’d put up. 

But she didn’t have time to deal with either of them, not when she was worried about one of the police officers doing something stupid and getting them all killed. Or the fact that in trying to rescue two children from a life threatening situation, she was taking a third in with her, and putting him in just as much danger. 

It wasn’t supposed to be like this, the bad guys were supposed to come after her, not the innocents she was trying to protect. Was it her fault that he had taken the girls? Did he feel them because she had taken Liz to the crime scene, because she had given the police that sketch?

Alex pointed again and she swerved, tires screeching on the pavement. They were heading into a residential area now, and she had to wonder where Alex was leading them, where the man had taken the girls, and if they were going to be too late.

~

The man had herded all of them up the stairs and into what appeared to be a basement, before disappearing again. The other three little girls were huddled into a corner crying, and Liz and Tess had given up on trying to get them to calm down enough to make an escape attempt.

 _‘Being six sucks,’_ Tess muttered angrily into her sister’s head, and Liz giggled despite the direness of their situation.

 _‘I wish we knew what was in that chest,’_ Liz stated worriedly as she eyed the large iron casket that was in the middle of the basement, at the center of a strange symbol that was carved into the cement floor.

 _‘I wish we never had to find out what is in that chest,’_ Tess replied flatly, her blue eyes cold with fear.

Liz hugged her tight, before pulling away and resuming her scan of the room. As far as she could tell, there was no way out other than the pantry they had been locked in before, and the door the man had disappeared through. There were no windows, no other doors, nothing that could help five tiny little girls get away from a psychopath.

Nothing except the two of them, and their ability to float candles or set something on fire, assuming they could get past whatever power blanketed the place. They could feel it pressing against their skin, as if the air itself was weighted with evil.

Liz shivered as something else impinged on her senses, “He’s coming,” she whispered, and Tess clutched her hand as the door swung open and cold air swirled around them, revealing the grinning, mask-like face of their captor.

~

They had left the inhabited areas behind and turned into the winding streets of a new sub-development, full of half completed houses and construction equipment, and completely deserted this late in the evening. 

“Stop!” Alex cried out suddenly, “They’re in that house, and he’s doing something, something bad. You have to save them!”

Anita hit the brakes so hard that all four of them slammed against their seat belts, as she halted in the middle of the street in front of an almost finished house that looked deceivingly innocent—pale blue with a wrap around porch and a large green yard.

“You three stay here,” she said firmly, holding Alex’s protesting gaze for a long moment. “I’ll get them out.”

Dolph and Zerbrowski were already out of their car when she stepped onto the pavement, three squad cars full of police officers pulling up behind them. Before she even closed the car door, Anita could feel the waves of evil coming off of the house, and wasn’t surprised to see that several of the police officers were looking decidedly uncomfortable. 

Whatever power the kidnapper had tapped into was strong enough that even someone with the barest touch of sensitivity should pick up on it. A lot of those men would find out if they could hack the supernatural beat that night, and quite a few of them likely would want to turn in their badges for good before it was over.

“He’s in there with all five girls,” Anita said grimly. “I think he’s alone but he doesn’t need backup with that kind of power. Whatever ritual he’s planning, Alex said he’s already started, so we need to get in now.”

Dolph nodded and Anita raised her voice so that all of the cops standing around them could hear. “No one does anything without my say so. He’s messing with enough power to do a hell of a lot of damage, and the wrong move could unleash something you do not want to meet.”

A few of them didn’t look happy to be taking orders from her, but Dolph glared around the circle, preventing any protests from being voiced. “Do what Blake says and maybe we’ll all go home alive, understood?”

They all nodded and Anita pulled her Browning from under her coat, approaching the house with Dolph and Zerbrowski several steps behind. Reaching for the doorknob she said a prayer under her breath for the safety of the girls. 

One way or another she was getting them out, and she was going to kill the son of a bitch who dared to touch them.


	17. Chapter 17

Liz wrapped her arms around Tess and held on tight as the man tried to pull her away, growling under his breath as they both struggled against him. The other little girls were already bound and set at their points in the symbol, and Liz and Tess both knew that they could not let him complete it. 

If they did, they might not be able to stop him from bringing the demon forth, or killing every last one of them and anyone else who got in his way.

Liz tensed as she felt the cold thrum of Anita’s power outside the house, and knew that they had bare moments before the man sensed it too. _‘Now, Tess!’_ she cried, shunting all of her own power into her sister as the blond’s hands lit up with hungry golden flames.

The skeletal man dropped them both back onto the cement floor and spat “Hell spawn!” as he frantically beat at the flames that were consuming his tattered black robes. 

**“Furcas servo! Repleo mihi per vestri everto vox!”** His voice changed as he called out the incomprehensible words; it was deeper, darker, evil, and both girls flinched back from the tainted sound. The ground rumbled and his mad eyes darkened, tinting black as a shadow seemed to rise from within him until his foul presence filled the room from end to end. 

The door to the basement blasted open before the policemen on the other side could bring in the battering ram, revealing Anita’s shocked face, and the frightened visages of all the cops behind her.

Liz grabbed her sister’s arms and pulled her along as she scrambled away from the bad man until they were pressed against the metal chest, unable to move farther through the ever-thickening air. They were already struggling to breathe and the smell of sulphur had a sudden new fear for the brunette.

A cold wind swept through the room and the flames on his robes snuffed out, sending icy chills of terror down the girls’ spines. _‘Oh shit,’_ Tess exclaimed silently, a flicker of her older persona drawn out by the situation. 

Liz just nodded her agreement as she clutched the blond’s hand, praying with every fiber of her being that somehow, they would all get out of this alive.

~

Anita led the men through the house, careful to keep at least a five-foot lead between her and Dolph, when she felt the rising shock of power that stank of death and evil so strong that one of the sensitives in the force had to stop and retch. 

They had just started down the stairs toward the iron basement door when it came flying towards them with a clang and a rush of pure power, Anita barely ducking in time to prevent her head from being sliced off. 

She straightened and sprinted down the rest of the steps, dread tightening her gut as she saw the stringy-haired man pull a gleaming knife from inside his robes. She slammed against the air with a jarring thud, a thick but invisible barrier preventing her from entering the basement.

The man laughed, a high sound with an underlying growl that made her skin crawl, and he stepped inside the symbol, approaching the first girl and slicing the knife across both of her forearms with vicious brutality. **“Permissum insons insontis cruor nutritor vos quod addo vos continuo onto is plagiarius,”** he intoned, and Anita felt a frustrated shriek well in her throat as he flung the blood onto the chest in the center of symbol.

 _‘Help me!’_ she cried out desperately, dropping the wall between her and the rest of the triumvirate. Their energy came rushing to her call, filling her body until she felt she might explode between Richard’s primal surge of life and violence and Jean-Claude’s cold sweep of death and power.

Her cross was blazing against her skin, burning like acid as she pressed forward, taking one agonizingly slow step after another as she approached the circle that was already swirling with visible streaks of dark demonic energy.

 **“Ego dico vos vinco ut recipero meus vitualamen, vita pro vita.”** He had finished with the third bound child and was moving towards her girls, menace in every line of his body as a gleeful smile lit his face.

Anita grasped the burning silver cross resting on her chest, ignoring the searing pain in her hand, and ripped it from her throat, flinging it at the man with every bit of strength she had. It arced through the air like a flaming comet, thudding against his back as his shriek filled the room, the sonic tones driving Anita to her knees with her hands clapped over her ears.

She had just sacrificed her best weapon; she could only pray that it had been worth it.

~

Alex fought against Nathaniel’s iron hold, struggling to get away, to get to his sisters. They needed him! He could feel their fear but he could not get through, could not help them from the car, could not do anything but rail helplessly against the strongest force of evil he had ever sensed in either life. 

“It’s not safe Alex, Anita will save them,” Nathaniel stated, his voice only wavering slightly, but Alex just shook his head, tears streaming down his face as he bit his lip hard enough to draw blood.

Anita was strong, she wanted to protect them, but it wouldn’t be enough. His sisters needed him, they needed him now!

Suddenly something shifted, the oppressive essence of darkness flickering, and his closed bond flared to sudden life. Finally, he could do something!

~

The bond with their brother that had been blocked was suddenly smashed wide open and the two girls struggled to their feet with renewed strength. Liz grasped Tess’s hand with silent accord and they began to walk towards the man who was convulsing on the floor, still shrieking as the holy symbol burned into his flesh.

Anita flung up her hand as if to stop them but they ignored her, their joined hands beginning to glow as their conscious minds surrendered control to primal instincts. Flames appeared in the air above their palms, the fire so hot it was white instead of yellow, bathing the whole room with blinding light. They reached down towards his face and his eyes snapped open, fear filtering into their abyss-like depths.

**“Haud! Vos vadum non subsisto mihi!”**

Their child faces were cold and implacable and they placed their hands against his forehead as he began to writhe, the flames not spreading across his skin but seeming to go beneath it until he was glowing from within.

They did not notice his hand lifting the knife back into the air, but Anita did, and she lunged forward, her hand grasping Tess’s shirt and yanking the two girls away from the dying man.

His back bowed in a painful arch and he screamed one last time, ashes floating out of his mouth as the ground shuddered and groaned, knocking everyone still standing to the floor. He collapsed, the smoldering remains barely resembling a corpse, and cold air swept through the room with one final, piercing shriek, before the feel of evil faded.

Anita gasped, a stuttering intake of breath as relief and disbelief swept through her. What the hell had just happened?

“No!” Tess’s distressed voice brought her crashing back to reality and her gaze snapped back to the girls, her heart seizing in her chest as she saw the red staining Liz’s side, and the hilt of a knife sticking out of her too small body, right underneath her ribs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Latin Translations for this chapter per a website I’m not sure I trust: “Furcas servo! Repleo mihi per vestri everto vox!” – “Furcas save me! Fill me with your demonic power!” “Permissum insons insontis cruor nutritor vos quod addo vos continuo onto is plagiarius.” – “Let this innocent blood feed you and bring you forth onto this plane.” “Ego dico vos vinco ut recipero meus vitualamen, vita pro vita.” – “I ask that you accept my sacrifice, life for life.” “Haud! Vos vadum non subsisto mihi!” – “No! You shall not stop me!”


	18. Chapter 18

The air still stank of sulphur, tainted with the copper smell of blood. The room was icy cold and the broken whimpers of the three other little girls grated on her nerves.

Tess could not stop crying, racking sobs shaking her tiny body. Liz was dying, Liz was dying and she couldn’t heal her, she couldn’t do anything. She was stuck in this stupid body, stuck being helpless. They never should have come here.

Anita was pressing her hands against the wound and shouting towards the cops, but Tess couldn’t hear her, could hear nothing but the faint rhythm of Liz’s heartbeat pounding in her ears. This wasn’t right; this wasn’t supposed to happen, not like this.

~

Alex could feel Liz fading through their bond and screamed, the sudden sound so loud it shocked Nathaniel into releasing him. Wrenching open the car door he streaked for the house, ignoring the shapeshifter’s frantic calls as he stumbled over the front step, skinning his knee on the hardwood floor.

Ignoring the small, stinging pain, he scrambled back to his feet and ran as fast as his annoyingly short legs would carry him. He had to get to her; he had too. Liz couldn’t die. She was his best friend, his sister, one-third of his being, and without her, the other two-thirds would not survive.

He almost fell down the stairs, managing to avoid the grasping hands of several shocked police officers as he made his way to the two girls lying sprawled on the cement floor. Liz was unconscious, the rising of her chest so faint he almost couldn’t see it as Anita held her hand against the wound, fear and anger flickering over the woman’s face as she called for help.

Tess was crying, the pain filled sounds sending lances of hurt through him as she grasped Liz’s hand. _‘Don’t leave me, Liz; don’t leave us, we need you!’_ She was repeating it over and over again and he fell to his knees at her side, one hand taking hers as the other rested over Anita’s.

“She’s not going to leave us,” he stated, his high, piping voice cold and hard with un-childlike determination.

Tess’s tear-filled blue eyes rose to meet his and he tilted his forehead against hers. _‘I need you to concentrate, Tess; I need all of your power.’_

She nodded, hesitantly at first before her features firmed with renewed confidence. They both closed their eyes, taking deep breaths as they settled deeper into the bond, the connection widening until they were one person and not three, their hearts beating in time with Liz’s faltering thuds, and their breathing falling into the same struggling pattern.

Alex’s hands started to glow and Anita pulled away in shock, desperately afraid that she was going to lose all three, but unable to stop herself from hoping that these three children, these three powerful but loveable children, would be able to achieve one more miracle.

The glow spread up Alex’s hand until it infused Liz’s body, her skin taking on a gleaming golden pallor. ‘Now, Tess!’ he commanded, and the blonde yanked out the knife.

Anita’s heart stopped beating for one jarring moment.

Alex’s tiny hands covered the seeping red wound instantly and the glow intensified, almost blinding the Animator, although she refused to look away. The glow disappeared just as quickly and Alex and Tess both slumped, their eyes barely open, both children having just enough energy to smile triumphantly as the boy pulled his hands away to reveal his sister’s unmarred skin.

Liz inhaled and then coughed slightly; her eyes sliding open to stare at all three of them. A smile spread across her face, one of those adult smiles that Anita was becoming used to on all three of them. “So did we kill the bad guy?”

Anita made a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob, and in an uncharacteristic show of emotion, she pulled all three into her arms, barely managing to squeeze Alex in there too. Hugging them tight, she didn’t care that almost a dozen police officers had filtered into the room and were staring at them with wide, disbelieving eyes.

Dolph was the first to approach, with Zerbrowski following close behind. “Aww, look at mommy Anita,” the shorter cop said with a smirk, and Anita flipped him off behind the children’s backs.

“Is it safe to enter the circle?” Dolph asked, his voice deep and rumbling, and she nodded wearily. “Come on people; get those girls to the ambulance,” Dolph said loudly, gesturing to the other officers who moved quickly; glad to have something to do.

The tall, dark-skinned man bent down in a surprising display of athleticism, raising an eyebrow as he caught her gaze. “You four okay?”

Anita nodded again; glancing down at the three children in her lap who were edging towards sleep, before looking back up at him with a genuine smile. “We’re just fine Dolph, just fine.”

He grunted. “You will tell me exactly what happened here, later.”

Her smile dimmed slightly but she nodded for a third time and he stood up, heading towards the body. Zerbrowski gave her two thumbs up before following and Anita chuckled softly, glad that at least the two of them wouldn’t look at her differently after this. Judging by the looks from the other cops, her reputation just took another turn, and she only hoped the children managed to stay out of the press.

Lifting her head she called out. “Hey Dolph? Think you could let Nathaniel in here so I can have some help getting these three to the car?” 

Dolph opened his mouth, most likely to suggest that one of the other police officers help, when he noticed for the first time the glances the children were getting that were just one step short of fear. He nodded resignedly and sent a plain clothes out to get him, while Anita rested her head against the cement wall, finally allowing herself to wonder how exactly the children had accomplished what they did.

They knew Tess could control fire, but they hadn’t set the man on fire, they had burned him up from the inside out. And then what Alex did to Liz—that was one gift that could not get out, because even your average human would not be able to resist the pull to see what else he could heal.

In fact, for the first time in her life, she was half-tempted to ask Jean-Claude to take those memories from the police, just to protect her kids. With that thought she realized that Jean-Claude and Richard were both clamoring for her attention and so she closed her eyes, reaching for the marks with what little energy she could muster.

 _‘I’m fine, the kids are fine. Liz and Tess killed the man before he could finish summoning the demon.’_ Their shock at her last words almost overwhelmed their relief at her first, but both could sense her exhaustion and surprisingly, it was Richard who pulled away first, without any of his usual acrimony. 

Jean-Claude kept the connection open long enough to send a warm mental caress that made her smile despite herself.

She managed to drag her eyes open again when she felt Nathaniel’s light touch on her arm, and then handed him Tess and Alex, keeping one arm curled under Liz’s slight frame as she staggered to her feet. 

“Let’s go home.”


	19. Chapter 19

The children were curled up in a puppy pile on the living room floor with Zane, Cherry, and Nathaniel, all six fast asleep. Staring down at them with a faint smile on her face, Anita realized that things had changed.

Her logic for not keeping them no longer applied. The girls were taken because of who they were; at least that was what Liz insisted after her brief foray into the man’s diseased mind. They were not taken because of their connection to her and, in fact, if anyone but her had been their guardian, things might not have ended so well.

Someone else might not have given credence to Alex knowing he could find them. Someone else wouldn’t have had her experience or resources in rescuing them. And someone else definitely would not have handled the triplets’ very effective way of removing the threat, and dealing with the aftermath, without freaking out.

There was no way she could turn them over to social services, no way she could trust anyone but herself to keep such unique children safe. It was time to accept that, once again, her life had changed. Her responsibilities had grown, and that just like with the leopards, there was no way she could let them fend for themselves because in this world, children with their abilities would be ruthlessly exploited.

And she could not allow that, that just wasn’t who she was.

“Non, it is not ma petite,” Jean-Claude stated, appearing suddenly behind her with all the graceful stealth he could command. 

“Stay out of my head,” she said with a touch of annoyance, her sharp words contradicted by the way she leaned into his embrace. 

He chuckled softly, fingers brushing against her arms in a way that sent sensual shivers curling down her spine. “But your head is such a fascinating place, ma petite; I cannot stay away.”

Anita shot him a glare but didn’t pull away, too exhausted to refuse the peace and comfort his presence made her feel. Her life had been crazy before the three children dropped in her lap, and the past few days had made her life before look like a lazy Sunday. Hopefully trouble didn’t follow them around like it did her or she’d never sleep again. 

“So you are keeping them, ma petite?” Jean-Claude asked carefully, concealing his own feelings from her.

She hesitated for a moment before nodding, realizing the futility of denying a decision she had already made, however much said decision might make her question her sanity. Mommy Anita. The very idea was laughable in a sick kind of way, but it seemed that she had one more title to add to her impressive list. “Yes, no one else can keep them safe like I can.”

“Like we can,” her lover replied, letting her catch a glimpse of how pleased he was with her decision before he walled his emotions away again. “However I will leave it to you to tell Richard, I doubt he will be as happy with this turn of events.”

Anita’s gut twisted and she winced at the thought of the coming confrontation. Richard still hadn’t let go of his picket fence dreams starring her; dreams that if she was honest, she still had a hard time letting go off, and this was guaranteed to push all of his buttons. A sudden flare of anger at just how much pain and drama he added to her life washed over her and she turned in Jean-Claude’s arms so she could look up into his dazzling blue eyes. “Screw him and his stupid prejudices,” she stated baldly, and watched as his lips curled into a smile.

“Most of his prejudices involve screwing, ma petite.”

Before she could stop it a chuckle slipped out and then she was laughing helplessly into Jean-Claude’s chest, the tension from the day easing out of her in waves of near-hysteric hilarity as his arms cradled her close. 

When she had calmed she tilted her chin up so she could see him. “Stay with me until morning?”

His smile was blinding and when he kissed her the room spun. “As you wish, ma petite, as you wish.”

~

Liz woke up slowly, drifting to the surface of consciousness like a swimmer rising to the top of the water, and found that she was strangely warm. When she managed to open her eyes she saw that she was cuddled up to Nathaniel’s chest, his long hair draped over both of them. Smiling happily, she peeked over his shoulder and saw Tess and Alex similarly curled up with Cherry and Zane, all of them in one big pile on the living room floor.

She didn’t think she had ever felt this safe and loved, definitely not in the few dim memories she still had of wherever they had been before. If she reached out with the tingly part of her brain she could feel Anita and Jean-Claude down the hall, both of them radiating peace and contentment. The reason they were content made her blush, but she wanted to bask in the tangible love and protection she felt.

Sudden motion caught her eyes and she tilted her head to see Alex’s blue eyes staring at her. _‘Are you okay? Did I heal everything?’_ His mental voice sounded faintly panicked and she sent him a short burst of reassurance.

_‘I’m fine, Alex, I promise. Are you okay? You brought me back to life, that’s kind of amazing.’_

He blushed and nodded. _‘I’m fine, I’m just glad I finally figured out what my power was.’_

 _‘You definitely have good timing,’_ Liz agreed with a giggle, making him flush again, this time with pride.

 _‘Would you two keep it down? Some of us are trying to sleep here…_ a third voice grumbled in their heads and Liz giggled again.

 _‘It wouldn’t be the same without you, Tessie!’_ she exclaimed, exchanging a mischievous glance with Alex before they joined their telekinetic ability together and reached out with phantom fingers, tickling their sister’s ribs.

Tess let out a muffled shriek of laughter before burrowing deeper into Cherry’s arms, trying to get away from the invisible torment. _‘Stop it! Stop it! I’m awake! Don’t wake Cherry up!’_

The two withdrew their power and grinned triumphantly, all three settling into a comfortable silence as thoughts and emotions flowed freely between them. _‘Anita’s going to keep us,’_ Liz said finally, breaking the silence when she couldn’t keep the good news to herself anymore.

Two excited and shocked gasps echoed through the living room before her siblings remembered to keep their expressions of happiness silent. _‘So we really are home?’_ Tess asked hesitantly, old and new fears coloring her mental tone as the others saw brief flashes of her old memories, none involving something as wonderful as a family.

 _‘We’re home, and we will all be a family forever, I saw it,’_ Liz promised, letting her unshakeable confidence bleed into her brother and sister until they all were reveling in a newfound sense of security and unadulterated joy. 

It had taken them two, and in one case three, lives to find it, though none of them remembered that yet, but Liz was right, all three of them really had come home, and across the universe, a being known to some as the Granolith, smiled.


End file.
